I was Beautiful Once
by WatsonSword
Summary: If you live a life of doing nothing, then nothing can ever harm you. Nothing except memories that is, memories 625 would rather not have.
1. Chapter 1

I Was Beautiful Once

Written by  
WatsonSword

Original Concept by  
Taylorwwjd

Legal Disclaimer

* * *

Lilo and Stitch is © Walt Disney Co. and Chris Sanders  
I hold no claim of ownership of Lilo and Stitch or any related characters. I hold no claim to any form of monetary profit for this or any other Lilo and Stitch related story I would write.  
This story is strictly to be provided to the general public for free and under no conditions.

* * *

The concept for this story was conceived of by the Fanfiction author Taylorwwjd. The original story written by Taylorwwjd upon which this fanfiction is based was called _The Redemption of Experiment 625_.

I found the premise to be extraordinary, however, I felt Taylorwwjd's original version of it to be far too short. I offered him to rewrite the story keeping the same premise and he accepted.

These are his exact words.

_To WatsonSword-  
Okay. I will accept your offer. You can rewrite my story. I just have some conditions for the story.  
1 - Try to keep the rating as low as possible. (Maybe K+ or under?)  
2 - Be sure to say that this is your 'remake' (however you want to phrase it) of my story, the Redemption of Experiment 625  
3 - BEFORE you publish it on _-url removed automatically by this website_-, e-mail me an advance copy just so I can check it out.  
I am glad that my story was so appealing to you, and I look forward to enjoying your take on my story.  
-Taylorwwjd_

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**Author Notes: **This will be a rather short fic. Say, about as long as The Only Thing Worse than Dying.  
Also a little voice work. I'm imagining the voice of Past625 being done by Elijah Wood. I know you probably don't understand me right now, but you will.

* * *

It was the middle of the afternoon. That meant there would most likely be no one to come bother him… most likely. It wasn't a guarantee, so there was still reason enough to be cautious, but caution took too much effort. Utter limpness and apathy were so much easier. All he cared about now were three things. What he was sitting on, a cushy high ranking officer's chair built of visco-elastic foam upholstered with genuine artificial leather. It was made for something over fifty times his size, all the better to laze in. What he was eating, an orange soda in one hand, a grilled peanut butter and jelly sandwich with bacon and sliced banana in the other. It was called an Elvis. He learned the recipe from a local nine year old girl who was a fanatic of the sandwich's namesake. Finally there was what he was watching. 

A butter knife, glistening like water in the artificial light, plunged into a jar of mayo. The entry was fast, but the exit was slow, so as to give the eye all the time in the world to behold it sliding back out with its creamy bliss so smoothly spread across its surface. The mouth watering, spine tingling slurp and fwap as the knife was brought out of the jar shot through the brain and the heart of onlookers, bringing out waves of heat and cold flowing through the body and making all hairs stand on end. The butterknife, covered with the froth of life, brought itself down ever so slowly to a slice of sourdough breath, toasted perfectly on both sides. The scrape as the mayo was spread across that piece of sourdough was both a shock, and expected. Aside from that though, it was such an incredibly sensuous sound, enough to cause one's heart to skip a beat, and knees to give way under the slightest of pressure.

The creature watched with stuttered breath and racing pulse as a hand came from outside the screen so delicately holding a slice of paper thin turkey breast. The slightest whimper escaped his parted lips as the slice of turkey was set down in the perfect rippled pattern. The hand went off screen, and came back with another slice, and placed it on the bread just as good as the last one. This time a tiny moan escaped his mouth as he could feel a force of ecstasy filling him up, but remaining just out of reach, remaining within the monitor across the room. That wasn't the end. More turkey was set on the bread. Slice after slice, it was becoming too much to handle. So lusciously moist, juicy and tender, it was giving him hot flashes on his neck and chest. Slice after slice of turkey caressed and stroked the surface of the thouroughly coated bread.

It was too much to take. Something had to give, and soon.

"And now we move on to the tomatoes." Spoke up a whiney, squeaky, granny voice with the most horrid pseudo-German accent imaginable.

That was enough to put the mood into a nose dive.

The creature in the chair scoffed and huffed at the painful voice that just had to come in and ruin his perfect moment of unequivocal lust. It just seemed to confirm the old saying, life sucks, and then you die.

The creature on the chair flopped himself back onto the backboard and tossed the rest of his Elvis into his mouth, swallowing almost without even chewing. There was no use for savoring the moment anymore, not after what that noxious voice did to it.

"Do not slice them too thick, but you do not want them to be too thin either."

There it went again!

The creature in question was a rather unpleasant looking creation of a banished mad geneticists. He was a fat, stubby, buck toothed thing with a twisted face, trying to masquerade as an adorable, fluffy little biped. His fur was a dirty tan, which wasn't made any better by the fact that he bathed far too seldomly. He was known only by his serial number, 625.

Unlike the rest of his kind, he didn't have an actual name, nor did he want one. In fact he loathed the very idea of anyone referring to him so personably. Why exactly that was, was a bit of a complicated issue. Nonetheless, you will come to learn it as this story unfolds.

A few more minutes of doing nothing and the annoying voice finally said something that piqued 625's interests.

"That's it for the turkey on sourdough. Coming up next on the sandwich channel, the French dip."

"French dip?" 625 repeated to himself with one eyebulge raised.

French dip huh. That sounded rather kinky, but still, when the mood's leaves, it doesn't come back. The only logical thing to do at that point would've been to change the channel, but that too would've taken some form of effort. He sat back and watched.

That how the rest of the afternoon went. That's how pretty much all afternoon's went around there. And that was how 625 liked it. Nothing would ever hurt him if nothing was all he ever did.

There was a slight downside to such an extreme form of laziness. You tend not to be able to keep track of time. Afternood faded into evening, and into night, when someone 625 knew very well was bound to show up.

625 let his head fall to the side as he heard the unmistakable humming of the elevator descending from the lower levels of the stranded ship he called home. When the elevator landed on the upper level, a silhouette of an sixteen foot tall something stepped out into the light reveling itself to be what looked like a bluish gray, humanoid orca in tights. The whale man took a split second glance around the room. Empty soda bottles, wrappers and magazines were haphazardly tossed throughout the floor, some of them with tiny round footprints smothering their surfaces. Open jars of condiments were piled atop tables, chairs, and control panels. A few of them had been knocked over. And the cause of it all, 625, sat in his chair watching a channel in the four hundreds devoted solely to the making of sandwiches, something he'd mostly likely had been doing for at least the past six hours.

"625!" The whale man screamed.

"Ouch man!" 625 responded, digging in his ear with his nail.

He brought out his nail to find it covered with bright earwax, which he promptly flicked away. It landed on the monitor screen.

"Do ya have ta yell so loud Gannster?" 625 continued. "I mean, yes I know the place is a little untidy, but yer' gonna give yourself a hernia with that attitude, if not a stroke."

"A little dirty?" Gantu yelled back, flailing one arm in the air. "You call this a little dirty? Living with you It's a miracle I haven't had a hernia and two strokes by now."

Gantu raised his head and sniffed the air just a bit.

"And what's that horrible smell? Did you leave the sauerkraut next to the heater all night again?"

"Actually that would be me you're smelling," 625 said, raising a hand. "not the sauerkraut."

"Urrrggghhh!" Gantu roared, and trudged his way through the bridge of his ship, but not before stopping in front of his chair to bend over and say something directly to his face.

"You are a fat, lazy, unreliable, useless slob!" He shouted so close to 625 that it ruffled his fur.

"Hey! I resemble that remark." 625 replied before taking a chug of his soda.

"And maybe if you bathed every once in a while you wouldn't be quite so ugly too!"

625 would blow off most insults like he did before. But what Gantu just said struck a nerve in him somewhere. Ugly. That was the one thing he couldn't stand being called, even though he knew it was true.

625 straigthened his posture and looked Gantu right in the eye. Gantu was caught off guard by this, not expecting it to happen since it never did before. Even more shocking was the look of seriousness on 625's face. Until then he didn't think 625 could be serious about anything if his life depended on it.

"How dare you ever, ever say that." 625 whispered.

"That's not a denial." Gantu remained headstrong.

"I know it's not, but still. Don't you ever say that again, because if you do, you're gonna be sorry. I don't know when and I don't know how, but you're gonna be sorry for it."

"Hrmmph!" was all Gantu grunted before trudging off to bed. He would have liked to have said more, but 625's sudden change in attitude had startled him, and he couldn't think of the words.

625 heard the shhhh sound of the side of doors opening and closing. This had been a very bad day for him, one that brought up things he preferred not to remember. He crushed the can in his left hand, spilling soda all over his hand and the seat, which trickled down to soak the fur on his hip. 625 pain no attention to it. He only stared at his other hand in wonder and in anger.

He was indeed ugly. His paw was an ugly light brown and his nails, the same shade of sickly cashew, grew in a bizarre pattern, with a near straight angle bent in the middle. This paw was an thing of shame, but wasn't always like that.

"I was beautiful once." 625 whispered to himself.

He tried to block out what was coming to him, but there was no such luck. Memories seemed to have a will of their own.

* * *

The world was liquid. Dreams were the only things that existed before. Now there was consciousness. Sight was denied. It was frightening. Struggles ensued, struggles for life that ended up being little more than wriggling. Struggling was useless. After relaxing, it felt a tiny part of its flesh lifting upwards. The world became light. Sight was given again, but it was different. Sight was supposed to be shadowy and confusing. This sight was bright, and very clear. Common sense came a few seconds later, telling it that the sight from before was only a product of the mind during the time without consciousness. That this sight was real. 

Next came awareness of the self. There were bizarre sensations, soft yet restricting, and warm. Could that somehow be related to sight? Everything was orangey. Perhaps the orange was causing the tactile sensation.

But if things could be felt places other than the eyes, that must have meant that the places that could feel belonged to it. If that were so, maybe it could control these places. It tried. A small, flat surface with four protrusions lifted itself through the murky orange until it could be seen. The orange resisted the movement, which meant it was something rather than nothing. It couldn't feel through the orange, which meant that the orange must have been something outside itself, something liquid.

It moved all parts of its body, trying to get a feel for just what size and shape it was. Knowledge came quick. It was very small. It had six limbs extending from a central body, and a ball that concentrated four of its five senses sticking out of the top of that body. Four digits, two thin and wriggly, two large, flat and floppy stuck out of that ball, while three quills stuck out of the back of the body. Such a things would be easy enough to get used to.

No sooner did it realize these things than a wooshing sound was heard. Yet another sense that was unfamiliar! The orange disappeared, and the resitance to movement was gone.

There was a solid wall in front of it. It was clear, but it could still be seen as the wall reflected the light. It put its paws up against the wall, feeling its smoothness and coldness. Everything was so new.

The wall lifted up, and what stood before it now was a very large thing. This thing was alive, its gut told it. It was deep purple and olive, had four eyes and wore a long white coat. Purple? Onlive? Gut? Eyes? Coat? How did it know the names of these things? Screw that, how did it know what those things did? It must've had that knowledge since before it first became conscious. The knowledge wasn't natural though, since it had to be searched for.

The large living thing picked it up in a white towel and brought it over to a metal basin, where it was washed of all the orange liquid. The sensation was pleasant. Though it was still wet, it was no longer sticky. A few minutes inside another clear wall that blew warm air around it, and it was now dry as well.

The large living thing lifted the round, clear wall away from it, and picked it up again. It was placed on a table and given a very hospitable and comforting look from that thing.

"Can you be understanding me?" The thing said.

That was communication. It was another thing it knew but not naturally. After a second or two, the words started to make sense. Another second or two of searching and the appropriate word to respond with came to mind.

"Yes." It said.

It's voice was masculine in nature, but soft, and so silky smooth. It was given a feeling of smugness listening to its own enticing voice.

"You are being 625." The thing said. "I am being Jumba. I created you. I built you."

Now everything made sense! Its name was 625, a series of numbers which meant that there were probably six hundred and twenty four that came before him. The thing in front of it was called Jumba. 625 felt he could trust this Jumba implicitly.

"Tell me more." 625 asked.

"Gladly." Jumba answered. "I am a scientist. My dream is to create ultimate biological, zoomorphic weapon! For many years have I been to toil and research for creation of such experiment. At last now, I have been succeeding. You are my experiment 625. You are my ultimate biological, zoomorphic weapon."

625's heart raced at at those words. The details were still a little hazy. But what that essentially meant was that he was built to be powerful. Weapons are things that are respected and feared. he is something that will be respected and feared. 625 wiggled his figertips as they tingled with excitement.

"You are being best." Jumba continued. "No other experiment can be being better than you. No other experiment can hope to be. You, 625, are beginning of new species, with physical and mental prowess far surpassing all others. You are beginning of new species, a species that will be destined for to rule over stars."

Passionate heat filled 625's blood as he heard more. He, and many others like him were going to rule someday. He was the beginning of a legacy that would lead to the monarchs of the stars. His purpose in birth was to be given power, so it would be his purpose in life.

"I want to be showing you something." Jumba said.

Jumbe bent over and picked up a large disc and held it in front of 625. Within the disc 625 could see the image of another living being.

"This is being you." Jumba said. "This is being your reflection. It is what your appearance is."

That disc was somehow showing him what he looked like. It was incredible. The body was lean and muscular. Almond shaped eyes glistening like black diamonds. Great golden fur seemed to glow and radiate an aura of the most exquisite velvety smoothness. Four mighty arms surely had the strength to rend even the toughest of materials. Two fangs protruded from the mouth, pointing down. They looked downright lethal in their sharpness, and they shined like freshly polished chrome, only pure white. Finally, ears swept back from his head, ovoid but with tapered ends that looked like the tips of daggers. Those ears were positively majestic.

625 could only stare in awe at his image. He brought his hand up to the reflection as if trying to touch another him, even though he knew it was impossible.

He was beautiful.

Life was going to be good.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author Notes:** I am addressing here a concern that has developed recently with my stories. Specifically, I want to talk about my lack of reviews. I have received only three reviews for this story so far, and yet I know you're all out there because it's gotten 59 hits! The reason I write is to get reviews. I want to know how people react to what I write. So please, don't just read my stories, tell me what you think of them!

* * *

It was nine fifteen at night, or so it was in 625s head, but he was never wrong about those kinds of things. Everything was dark, too dark for most species, though he could still see the silhouettes of the various oversized mechanisms scattered about the room.

625 still sat in that giant chair, his body utterly limp and lifeless, and his eyes half closed. Some amount of orange soda had dried against his hip and leg, matting his fur. Still, he paid no attention. Distant sounds permiated the atmosphere. Ducts clanged and whispered all throughout the ship. Electrical circuits whistled far out the hearing range of the land whale in the other room, and just out of the hearing range of humans. 625 though, could make it out in complete detail. Every minute change in pitch, tone and volume from every direction told him exactly where the circuit pathways were, how strong they were, whether or not the were insulate, what direction the current flowed, as well as every last flaw that could be found. The entire power grip of the ship was mapped out in his mind just from listening to that hum. It was pouring down rain outside, which made a very peculiar sound when beating down against ship's metal hull. An occasional metallic rattling could be heard from somewhere. It couldn't be told exactly what that was, possibly swinging chains or an open locker swaying about. 625 noticed all of these sounds, but paid attention to none of them.

He stared into space with his half open eyes, so still, breathing so shallow that anyone who didn't know better might think he was dead. A slight trail of saliva ran down the side of his mouth. He zoned out entirely, not quite awake but not quite asleep either. He observed nothing. He thought nothing. He felt nothing. He was good at that. Then again he'd had plenty of practice.

One sound in particular would eventually catch his attention though. It was a constant clicking. It was different from any of the others because it had no discernable rhythm, no pattern. It was starting to get annoying.

625 couldn't take it any longer. He focused. The sound was coming from the adjacent room, as was a slight grumbling. 625 was very familiar with that sound, and he didn't like it in the least. However, the force of irritability had thus far not overcome the force of lethargy, until now. Perhaps it was because of the mood he was in, what he had been reminded of not twenty minutes ago that he actually wanted to go in there and stop that noise. It wasn't because he was actually motivated to do anything now, but rather because he knew that if he went into that room he would be further reminded of his days of greatness so long ago. He didn't want to be reminded for the most part, but a very small piece of him did, and that was enough to make him lean forward and stand up.

625 wiped the saliva from his lip and chin and hopped down off the massive chair. He left it still littered with breadcrumbs, dried soda and its empty can. The slight clicking and shifting continued, as did the grumbling. 625 walked over to the large automatic door at the end of the room. He shifted his weight on the floorboard beneath his feet and the slit down the middle of the door whined just before the two halves slid in opposite directions into the wall.

625 squinted as the light from the room shone in his eyes. It was just a lamp, but so long in total dark had made them sensitive. It was less than a second before they were readjusted, and he relaxed again.

Gantu lay in his huge ovoid bed propped up and leaning against the wall behind it. He was growling Tantalog obscenities under his breath while fumbling with a tiny block in his hands. 625 knew what it was since Gantu had been struggling for the past month with it. It was some kind of human puzzle device. It was a block made of smaller interconnected blocks in such a way that the entire thing could be contorted and rearranged within itself. You were supposed to reorganize the block so that each face showed only one color. Gantu called it a Rubix Cube, as per the human tradition.

"It's been over a month and you still haven't gotten anywhere on that thing?" 625 spoke up.

Gantu growled and threw the cube to the ground. It bounced once and rolled toward the door. 625 followed the device with his eyes

"I'd like to see you do any better." Gantu spat daringly.

"Hmm." Grunted 625 as he put his fists to his hips.

25 took a few steps toward the cube and picked it up. He tumbled it about in his hands. The thin was an unintelligible mess, but in 625's brain geometry began to unravel. He closed his eyes to give himself a darkness to better focused on the shapes he was crunching in his head. Everything fell together in an instant. With his eyes still closed, he emptied his brain and just let his hands do what they would. Gantu's eyes and mouth opened wide and he leaned forward. 625's hands were a blur of motion. In a little over five seconds, he opened his eyes and looked down at his cube, now with only a single color covering each face.

"How did you do that?" Gantu asked.

"Hmm." 625 grunted. "That's nothing compared to what Jumba would make me do back in the lab."

Before Gantu go out another word, 625 had turned around and headed back out the door with cube in hand. It shut behind him. 625 faltered back over to the chair and jumped up on top of it. He slouched down against the back and held the Rubix Cude out in front of him. His eyes had already adjusted back to the darkness. He saw each side in a perfect uniform color from only five seconds of effort.

"Puzzles." 625 whispered to himself. "It started with puzzles, then it went to physique. That's how I got to know her."

* * *

He sat on a cushy chair. It was cushy! It was so unlike anything he'd ever felt before. He ran the bare parts of his paw against the seat. Even the bed he slept in last night wasn't like this. It was soft yes, much unlike the hard metal surfaces he was used to before, but this was still different. The bed, its pillows and its blankets were soft, unlike metal, but they were smooth, like metal. This was soft, and the opposite of smooth. It was fuzzy. After thinking about it for a moment, 625 decided that this is what fur might feel like if it were trimmed extremely short.

That was enough of that then. There were more important things to attend to at the moment, such as what was in front of his face. It was a small plate with an assortment of foods on it. There were fruits and vegetables of all kinds on it, some cooked, some not. There were a couple different meats in radically different colors. A few sauces for dipping. The plate was generally disorganized.

It was curious to 625 how smelling all those different foods made his mouth flood with saliva. That effect filled him with a desire to stick those foods in his mouth, and he wasn't one to say no to desire. 625 extended his claw and stabbed a piece of meat, but there was still room. He stabbed a vegetable, then a fruit, and then dunked the concoction into one of the more brightly colored sauces. The flavors were intense. But there was something wrong. They didn't quite agree with each other. The blend of so many good flavors produced a hybrid flavor that wasn't so good. 625 grimaced and then swallowed. He should be more careful about what flavor combinations he would choose in the future, which was bound to occur in just a few seconds.

625 closed his eyes and smelled. There were so many different smells, fruity, citrus, spicy, meaty, and smoky. 625 decided that meaty, spicy, and smoky would probably go well together. He skewered a dark chocolate colored piece of meat, along with a flat, disc shaped green fruit, and with another hand, poured a solid black sauce over it. He shoved it into his mouth. Those flavors agreed with each other. 625 closed his eyes again and chewed contently, and kept chewing, until there was nothing more of the flavor or the texture, and then he swallowed. He wanted to try another combination. Fruity, citrus, and spicy sounded good. He was about to stab another thing on the plate when someone sat down next to him.

_"First time eating hmm?"_

625 turned around. Another experiment sat next to him giving his a rather odd look. It spoke in Tantalog, not a language he ever spoke before, but he knew it nonetheless.

The room was a rather large cafeteria with a buffet line at the end. A few experiments sat at several tables, mostly in groups of two or three. 625 had counted nine in all. He knew what they were from asking Jumba so many questions the previous night. They were Jumba's creations and former attempts at producing biological weapons. Everyone there lived in a massive laboratory complex funded by Galaxy Defense Industries, a large corporation owned by some sniffling narcissistic rodent like thing who never did anything except complain about everything. All the experiments were separated into small groups so no one knew more than a handful of others. Jumba said it was safer that way, though the exact details were still sketchy.

625 had taken a bold step to open the door to the cafeteria and have his very first meal. But striking a conversation with one of the other experiments was going a bit too far. He decided to wait and see if one of them would approach him, and this one did.

The experiment looked a lot like him, only it seemed to be missing parts. It only had one pair of arms, but its back was bare, devoid of defensive quills. It had antennae though, but boy were those things long. They had to stretch all the way down to its feet when it stood up. It was generally slimmer than him as well, and more rounded. The color was also different, a very, very light red.

There was something enticing about this experiment and how it looked at 625. It was something he couldn't put his finger on, something that made his heart beat a little faster. It was probably just anxiety for the first interaction outside of Jumba. It was nothing that attention should be paid to.

"_Yeah… it is."_ 625 answered back in Tantalog.

"_It might take some time to figure out what's good and what isn't."_ The experiment spoke again. Its voice was much lighter in tone than his, and something about its inflection gave 625 a slight tingling sensation in his lungs.

The light red experiment dropped its eyes from 625's face, looking down at his body for just a moment before bringing them back up. That move made the fur on the back of 625's neck stand on end. That feeling was more than just social anxiety. But it was best to ignore it until he found out from Jumba exactly what that was, lest he might do something uncalled for.

Food was at least something 625 was familiar with, so he decided to take up the light red experiment on its offer. 625 glanced down at the plate in front of the light green experiment. It was a world of tidiness compared to his. Several kinds of meat, grilled slices of fruit and vegetable, and two different types of sauce were placed in a perfect short column between two slices of crimson bread. It was a testament to precision.

"_What's that?"_ 625 asked, motioning toward the stack.

"_Oh this?"_ the red experiment answered, looking down at it. _"It's just a sandwich it's nothing special."_

625 looked at his own plate, seeing if he had the ingredients to recreate such a device himself. They were all there, meat, vegetable, fruit, sauce, and that same crimson bread to be placed outside. Now all that was left was a good flavor combination. That wasn't difficult, his nose guided hi the entire way.

It was done, 625's very own sandwich. It didn't look quite as orderly as the other, but it still seemed appetizing. 625 picked it up and took a bite. It was wonderful. Who knew that so many distinct flavors could be combined and still taste so good, and in such a convenient package no less!

The other experiment giggled. 625 didn't know why, but that made him feel good. But this perfect moment just had to be interrupted.

Over the speakerphone on the cafeteria came Jumba's voice.

"Experiment 625, please being reporting to my office at once for evaluations."

625 knew what that meant. It had been explained to him yesterday. Jumba was going to put 625 through a series of tests to determine if he could really do what he was built for.

625 grumbled, dropped the sandwich back on his plate, and walked out the door of the cafeteria. As he left, he could almost feel the strange light red experiment staring at him the entire way.

* * *

625 sat in a cushy chair, his favorite, built just the right size and shape for him. He was in a darkened room, though with his enhanced vision he could tell it was very large and had a very high ceiling. The floor was cushioned with a kind of hardened foam, possibly this room was meant to expend physical energy in, and the padding was to prevent injury. In front of him was a large oval monitor. It clicked and flicked on, spilling a light blue glow over his face.

The screen showed a random smattering of thin segments of lines all of equal length. Every segment was connected to at least one other segment somewhere in its body. The whole thing looked like garbled line static, with no rhyme or reason anywhere. If chaos could be displayed on a monitor, this would be it.

"First is to be testing mental acuity." Jumba's voice echoed through the chamber. "Despite appearances to contrary, pattern in front of you is being of highly organized pattern. Is being fractal pattern. However, is also being incorporating self with second, incompatible fractal, polluting overall design and making whole thing unintelligible, nonsensing mess."

Two more monitors dropped down from above and took their places on either side of the first, facing slightly inward toward 625. They both turned on. One was an incoherent mass of numbers and mathematical symbols, the other was a blank slate with control bars spanning the top and left side. A forth object rose from the floor. It was a control panel of some kind. Even though 625 had never seen it before, he was familiar with it. In fact he was already intimately familiar with the entire form of computer in front of him, just one part of the vast library of knowledge imbued into his head before his first waking moments.

"To right is being many pages long formula representing central pattern as whole. To left is being basic number processing program. Your task is for to decipher two original fractals based on right representation of resulting polluted pattern.  
"You are having eighty seconds. Beginning."

625 looked at the mass of numbers to his right. He instantly saw how every number and symbol related to some line, connection, and position in the center screen. He could now have recreated the central pattern without having ever looked at it. But somewhere behind those numbers were two much simpler equations that, when put together and solved, would create mindless heap before him. He started to crunch mathematics in his brain. Some parts he expanded, some he simplified. He cut out whole section and deduced new ones that seemed as if they should be there. He rearranged the pieces until something distinct finally began to emerge. He tinkered some more in his head, and two definite sides of an equation started to appear. Soon, those two sides turned into two separate equations. That was it! They were there, all that was left now was to simplify them into their smallest possible forms, and that was a snap.

625 turned to the control panel and punched two rather small fractal equations into the screen on the left. He hit execute and the right and center screens cleared, replaced by two ever branching patterns, though 625 already knew exactly what they would be before they appeared. One was a simple tree like design, while the other was a golden spiral made from a helix shape.

"Eleven point seven two two seconds. Is being even faster than I!" Jumba's voice roared out through the room. "Now we are moving on to more polluted fractals. Each one will be being progressively harder than last. Each one will be giving of eighty seconds to solve, but accuracy is important, not speed. We will be seeing how difficult is for to making you take longer than allowed time period."

Another pattern emerged, even more convoluted than the last, and to the right another giant formula, making even less sense than the one before. 625 went to work. It took him a little over eighteen seconds to solve this one. The two fractals were both a bit more complex this time. The next one took twenty four seconds, and consisted had three fractals! It went on, until the eleventh pattern he wasn't able to solve in the eighty seconds allowed, though the one before it consisted of three different advanced neuropathic fractals, and one to predict the patterns of rock erosion by acid rain.

"Congratulations 625!" Jumba's voice bellowed. "You have exceeded my wildest expectations. You have been achieving in less than twenty minutes what would be taking me over five hours. In pure mathematical prowess, you are far surpassing even me."

625 was better at math than his very creator? He grinned as his body filled with a warm ambitious feeling. He searched his massive database of a head for what that feeling was called, and he found it. It was ego. Sure, there were many different types of intelligence other than mathematical, and such mathematical prowess still took creativity to apply it, but 625 felt that his ego was, at least for the moment, justified.

"Now for being physique testing."

This was when Jumba was going to test just how strong, agile, and tough he was. 625 was ready for anything Jumba could throw at him.

The monitors retracted into the ceiling, and the control panel retracted into the floor. The lights turned on revealing the huge room with its padded floor and metallic walls and ceiling. A small menagerie of wicked looking gadgets were sprawled about.

"Please be stepping on large metallic platform." Jumba's voice commanded.

As it said, there was a large metal platform on the floor, with another above it connected to the ceiling by many thick bars. 625 hopped out of his seat and walked over onto the platform.

"You are standing inside of hydraulic press." Jumba's voice said. "It will crush down on you with ten times your weight, and pressure will gradually increase. Be holding it up as long as possible, when knees finally give way, pressure will be reversing, sucking press back into ceiling."

He was ready. He lifted all four of his arms into the air, palms up, and the press came down on him. Holding it up was a snap. He could feel it getting heavier by the moment, but so far, he did not exude any effort it holding it up.

"Now reaching one hundred times weight."

625 now needed to exert some energy to keep up this pressure. But something else caught his attention. A figure loomed in the distant shadows. It stared at him with eyes glazed over in want and a smiling mouth parted in the center. It was the light red experiment from before. 625 wondered why it would be staring at him like that, but whatever reason, the attention gave him the uncomfortable sensation of being without gravity. Surely if it knew he could see it, than would leave. Maybe it didn't know just how sensitive his eyes really were. 625 would not lead on that he knew someone was there, for however physically uncomfortable the feeling he got from this experiment was, he found it somewhat enjoyable. He pushed up against the hydraulic press.

"Now reaching five hundred times weight."

625 had to put noticeable effort into what he was doing now. He clenched his jaw and bent his knees slightly to give himself a better hold.

"Now reaching one thousand times weight."

Now it was starting to hurt. He noticed his palms moistening and his arms beginning to shiver. His arms started to sting. 625 noticed the weight he held up wasn't even on all paws. A quick adjustment and they felt a little better. His legs were starting to shiver.

"Two thousand times weight."

He was definitely feeling it now. His arms and legs were burning and shaking. His heart was pounding. Tears streamed down his eyes from the pain. But he had to persist. He had to show Jumba just how extraordinary of a creation he was. And for some strange reason he couldn't fathom, he felt he also had to show that to his visitor.

"Three thousand times weight."

His hands and feet were totally numb. His arms, legs and chest were on fire. He wailed out in pain, and then, his strength met its mach. His knees collapse from under him and he fell down, curled into a ball and shivering. The hydraulic press retracted back into the roof.

"Final result, three thousand and four point two one six times weight supported." Jumba's voice rang through the room. "Is over double of what I have been anticipating. You are truly exceeding all expectations 625."

The pain went away faster than 625 thought it was possible. It must've been another of his extraordinary abilities. 625 stood up as soon as the pain became manageable, and once he regained his balance it was gone entirely.

"Moving in front of large cannon."

625 eye the room. The experiment from before still gave him that tantalizing stare. He found the cannon attached to a swing arm hanging down from the ceiling. It didn't look like much. It was a yellow cylinder with a concave end leading to a hole in the center.

"This cannon is firing oversized bolts of relatively cool plasma." Jumba said. "Your task is for to catch one bolt and be holding it in hands for until pain become unbearable."

625 put his arms out in front of him waiting for the blast to come with a smirk. The cannon charged, and a glob of glowing dark brown gel flew from the central hole of the cannon. 625 caught it with ease. It burned immediately, but the pain was manageable. For many minutes he stood there holding the dripping glob. It got more and more painful with each passing moment. 625 winced and writhed, and then something strange happened. It started to become less painful. After he could open his eyes again, he looked down to see the plasma had become a shade darker. He held it for so long it was loosing its heat.

"I think this test is over." 625 said.

"Explaining."

"The plasma's cooling down, at this rate I can keep holding it forever."

"Absolutely incredible." Jumba's voice whispered. "Alright, be discarding plasma."

625 tossed the glob behind him. It landed and poured out thick red smoke, triggering fans to suck it away from the room.

"Now be heading over to smaller array of cannons." Jumba's voice commanded.

625 looked around. His guest was still there, and still mesmerized. A little ways away was an array of three much smaller guns, also hanging from the ceiling by swing arms. 625 stepped in the middle of the guns ready for anything they could dish out, but a small face mask with no eyeholes touching his foot caught his attention.

"Smaller cannons will be firing harmless ball bearing, harmless to you that is. You are to be dodging them for as long as possible. But being warn-ed, rate of fire will increase with time. Also, you cannot b relying on sight for this test. Please be putting on mask. Remember, you are to be dodging, not blocking"

625 reached down and slipped the mask over his face. Its smell was that of gold and copper so even if he changed his sight method he still couldn't see through it.

The first ball bearing was fired. The sound gave away a perfect trajectory, as did the shift of air against his fur. A quick side step and the ball went past him. Another one fired from a different angle, and was just as easy to dodge. Two more shot in rapid succession. A single twist was able to dodge them both. This time three, which required a little bit of twisting on 625's part. Two at once, both could just be ducked. The firing got more intense, but the level of difficulty in dodging the ball bearings only became moderately more difficult as time passed. Eventually, all three cannons were firing automatically at him. He flew and spun through the air like a fly evading each and every one of them. Now it was becoming hard, keeping track of so many moving objects just by sound and feel, and making sure none of them touched you. 625 swung and swayed and whisked his body through the air, passing between each and every ball bearing that came his way. Soon enough it would become too much for him, and there would be nowhere else to turn. That moment came later than 625 had anticipated, but it came nonetheless. A ball bearing hit him in the side of the arm, knocking him off balance. He fell to the ground and was pelted by the entire barrage. Though against his robust body it all felt like little more than soft pats.

The guns stopped and 625 stood up. The entire room was littered with ball bearings.

"Amazing!" Jumba's voice sounded throughout the room. "Simply amazing! 625, you are beyond everything I had ever dreamed of!"

The tests were over. 625 took off his mask and glanced around. Jumba stood in the doorway, the familiar experiment, also knowing the tests were over it seemed, hopped into a nearby air vent and disappeared. Today was a very good day.

* * *

625 lay on a polymer table in a small office while Jumba busily typed the results of his tests and its implications into his laptop just above 625's head. He thought back throughout the day. He had learned all of the finder details of where he came from and why. He had learned just how vast his abilities truly spanned. He had learned of the pleasures of eating, and of a new way of arranging food that would quickly become his favorite. But the thing that he pondered the most was what he hadn't learned. Who was that mysterious light red experiment? Why did it seem so interested in him? And why did that interest seem so alluring?

"Hey Jumba?" 625 asked.

"Yes?" Jumba answered.

"There was this one experiment who really seemed to want to get to know me. He also snuck into the gym and watched me the entire time I was training."

Jumba stopped typing and blinked a few times before turning to 625.

"Be describing experiment." Jumba said.

"Well he's allot like me but only one pair of arms, no quills, really long antennae, and really light red. I mean so light that I think they should have a separate name just for that color."

Jumba chuckled under his breath. He knew exactly what was going on, and 625 didn't have a clue.

"They are having separate name for color." Jumba said. "Is pink."

"Pink." 625 whispered to himself. "I like it. It sounds classy."

"And experiment is being she not he."

"She?"

625 had no idea what that word meant.

"Is experiment 624," Jumba continued. "and is female."

Female... That wasn't a word 625 immediately recognized. Somewhere in that vast storehouse of injected knowledge he possessed surely there must be the word female in it somewhere.

He found it, female, and everything that meant and every related term and implication.

"Female." 625 whispered. "So that's a female."

No wonder her attention made him feel so exited.

"625 is insurance policy experiment." Jumba began to lecture. "In case any experiment were to becoming pacifistic, 624 can be turning them right back to their original purposes as biological weapons using acoustic hypnosis."

"In other words she sings to make you evil?" 625 asked.

"Exactly." Jumba answered. "And it is appearing that she is attempting for to fraternizing with you."

"Really…" 625 responded.

Those words right there made his day. If she wanted him, than getting her should be easy, but all that could be considered tomorrow. Right now it was late, and he was tired.

"I'm going to bed." 625 muttered as he rolled off the desk, quickly righting himself and walking out the door.

* * *

The door slid open to 625's little form. It was just a small rectangular space with a bed immediately on entrance. At the other side was a little desk with a laptop. Walking further along you'd find a sink and a mini fridge, a few cupboards, and a door leading to a little stall/shower combo. It was all designed small to accommodate 625 specifically. Though by chance it also accommodated another experiment earlier in the day.

625 looked to his bed to find a plate with a fresh new sandwich on it. He gazed over the sandwich and found a small piece of paper tossed on top of it, sprawled with Tantalog writing.

_I see you like sandwiches.  
I like sandwiches too.  
Meet me tomorrow evening in the south storage room. We'll talk.  
624_

It seemed 624 was bold enough to make the first move. 625 didn't know if that was a good thing or not. On one hand, this meant he didn't have to make the first move. On he other, it meant that he'd have to make the second, which had to top the first in every conceivable way.

He picked up the sandwich and took a bite out of it. It was even better than the one he made that morning. Though that didn't surprise him. 624 probably had a lot more experience in sandwich making than he did, but that wouldn't last.

625 grabbed his laptop with one and smacked the plate off his bed with another. He hopped up onto his bed and set his laptop down on his stomach, at the same time just finishing off his new sandwich.

"Computer," 625 whispered. "display all known research files on sandwiches sequentially."

Documents began to scroll across the screen on the oval laptop. Recipes, historical manuscripts, important figures, variations through cultures, there were all kinds of documents. 625's eyes read them all instantly, at least compared to the speed they were being displayed at.

"Show them faster."

The documents started to scroll at double their previous speed. But it wasn't enough. He could still read them too quickly.

"Faster." He said.

"Faster." Again.

"Faster dammit!"

Each document flew across the screen now leaving only a fraction of a fraction of a second to absorb and consider them. It was finally a comfortable pace for 625's research.

After an hour or so of reading all about sandwiches at blinding speeds, it all became too much for 625 to handle, and he fell asleep with the laptop still flashing in front of him.

Today was indeed a good day. But tomorrow could only be better.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author Notes: **  
I've been meaning to say this for a long, long time, but every time I got the opportunity it slipped my mind.  
Our Lilo and Stitch author Celebi has drawn for me a pic of the three siblings from Gems of Tommorow, Emerald, Ruby, and Sapphre. At the deviantart website she goes by the name Pyreo. But Like i said, this was LONG ago, so now the pic is on the second page. For those of you who read Gems of Tommorow, check it out!

Also, I've got a new livejournal account! Yay me!  
Look it up! It's under my usual name WatsonSword.

* * *

625 stared at the newly solved Rubix Cube for a few more seconds. The device was pitiful, it wasn't worth his time and effort. A child would be able to solve that thing, or at least a child should be able to. He grunted a sound of tedium before dropping it back on the floor. 

This was too much stimulation for one sleepless night. Only TV could now restore 625 to his normal vegetative self. Oh how he longed for a perfect world where all that existed was food and TV. But the necessary evils of life and the past had to come back to haunt him occasionally. Necessary evils they were to him at least.

625 shook his head and hit the side of his temple with his paw in a vain attempt at driving all conscious thought from his brain. It didn't work. He clawed at the inside of his ear and flicked the wax built up on his nail against the wall. He sighed.

He walked through the middle floor of the ship with his eyes closed. He didn't need to see, or hear, or smell or feel for that matter, so he shut out all sensory stimulus. Memory alone got him to where he was going.

625 hopped back up onto the massive chair and landed his feet in sticky, partly dried soda sprinkled with crumbs and morsels. He didn't care. He turned around and flopped down onto his butt, landing it too in sticky, partly dried soda sprinkled with crumbs and morsels. He still didn't care. But where was the remote?

There was an uncomfortable lump underneath 625's thigh. He leaned over and reached under his leg to grab the disk. His hands stuck to it like glue, and bits of bread and meat rubbed off into his fur, along with the orange syrup, the only thing left of the soda. He didn't care. He peeled his fingers off the side of the remote and turned on the communications monitor at the front of the deck. 625, in his infinite wisdom, had managed to break into Earth's communications satellite system and beam down three thousand channels of nothing straight into Gantu's ship. It was one of the few things he did that required any amount of effort, and that only because he knew it would pay off with indefinite laziness down the road.

He was getting the weather in Ankara Turkey. 625 balled his hand and hit the resulting fist against his chest, forcing up a burp exclaiming just how much of a damn he gave about Turkey. He changed the channel. It was some Portuguese infomercial about an all natural male enhancement product, the last thing he wanted to see at the moment. He changed the channel. Somebody screaming in Japanese as he sawed through a block of concrete with a kitchen knife while fancy graphics flew across the screen. Again. A rather distraught looking cat with strings tied to its limbs was being danced around like a puppet to music from _The Doors_ as played by kazoo. 625 sneered at the image. That was just plain disturbing. Again. At least this one was in English, but no less appealing. _Now you too can have pecs like these with our patented Swedish pec enlarger pumps!_, shouted out the voice of a hyperactive old fart. Again. Something interesting at last, an unrealistic late night intrigue serial from the mid seventies titled _Mission Unstoppable_.

"Now how's we goin' to scale that wall?" asked a skinny middle-aged man in an all black suit and an impossibly blond afro.

"You just hold on to me baby," answered his heavyset black partner in dreads and shades, even though it was the middle of the night. "That wall's nothing for my collapsible pole-vault."

625 chuckled under his breath at the sheer lunacy of it all. Collapsible pole-vault, obviously a phallic reference. Shows from the seventies were filled with them. And nobody in their right mind would break into a beachside mansion in Cuba by scaling a two story wall when they could just gas the place and then walk right in through the front door. 625 knew this well as he had done many such raids himself. The golden rule was always, how can you make the mission easiest on yourself. The less drama, the less suspense, the better.

625 stopped laughing and a tear welled up in his eye. The memories came back, memories of his first field assignment brought on by the show. He thought maybe the TV would quell his memories for at least the time being. He should have known better. Once the memories start, they didn't stop until they ran their course. But the mission, no it wasn't the mission that was so disheartening; it was what came before it, and after it.

* * *

625 unscrewed the hatch to the air vent with his fingernail. The stuff from the cafeteria and the supply vaults were just too bland for what he had in mind. Only the best would do for his conniving little mind, and the best could only be found in Jumba's private suite. 

He pulled the hatch back into the vent and looked through the room. The decorations were incredible. There wasn't a hint of polymer, ceramic, or dulled metal anywhere. Things were made of wood, real wood. Counters were built from patterned stone, natural stone, with real iridium trimmings. The soft, cool glowing tan of the iridium was downright seductive. Seeing it in real life, even from a distance, was so much different than in hologram. He looked around some more. A massive oval bed lay in the center at one end of the room. His own sleeping pod now seemed something for the impoverished in comparison. The bright red blankets with the indisputable polished tan of iridium colored trim were laid out perfectly. They looked as soft and smooth as his own golden fur. Carpets and artworks and architecture were everywhere. The sheer amount of culture and luxury pervading the room was almost overwhelming to someone who had never seen such things, at least not in person. But 625 was here on a mission. He shook his head and looked back into the room. He blinked his eyes and they came back a glowing red.

Looking at the room with his IR vision, 625 could see hot spots on the floor representing pressure detectors, and the wide beam lasers of motion detectors. Good thing none of it reached the ceiling. 625 climbed out of his vent and across the ceiling, looking for anything to use to deactivate the security. Finding it was all too easy, a control pad next to the door with a small hole next to it. The security was obviously meant to keep intruders out, and not to hamper intruders who were already in.

625 crawled across the ceiling over the panel. He waited until the motion sensor finished its sweep and crawled down. His extra arms, once hidden, now extended. In one hand he carried a small metal tube with a button on one end and a hole on the other. _Jumba_ was scrawled on it in crude handwritten Tantalog. In the toher hand he carried a sandwich filled with his favorite meats and fruits and blended into a slaw. After swallowing the sandwich in one huge bite, 625 aimed the tube at the hole in the panel and pressed the button. A sprits shot out of the tube and into the hole.

_Welcome Jumba_, was sounded through the room in a pleasant female voice. 625 jerked around in sudden fright that he might have been discovered, but the lasers and hot spots were now gone. It must've been the security system, it was now off, that sample of Jumba's flaked off skin must've worked.

625 hopped off the wall and onto the floor.

"Too easy." He said to himself in his angelic voice that he couldn't get enough of. He rubbed all four hands together and then went to work.

625 crawled back up to the air vent and threw out a large black carrying bag. Now for the collection.

The blankets were a must. 625 spared no neatness in pulling them right off the bed and rolling them into a ball to throw inside the bag. He glanced around, what else could there be? 625 casually strolled down to the end of the room, passing a full length mirror on the way. He couldn't help but to glance at his own reflection. The radiance from his gem like eyes and glass like teeth were matched only by the glitter of his fur, the purest blazing gold. Tonight this thing of beauty was finally going to be put to good use. He continued.

On a shelf were a few large glass tubes open on one end and filled with a black gelatin. He'd read about this stuff. Pannsalt jelly it was called. It burned in six different colors and gave off the smell of saltwater oceans. Those were keepers.

What else was there?

On a small table off in the distance was a clay vase filled with long stemmed plants of some kind. The blue stems would grow into translucent bright orange spheres, which shrank back into its stem until it would reach the next sphere in the line. The spheres on the stems caught the light and separated it like a prism, but with an orange tint. Those would be great just thrown about randomly on the floor. But enough of atmosphere, now it was time for substance.

Something good to drink.

Something good to drink was always kept in cabinets beneath miniature kitchens taking up the size of small desks. Lo and behold, there was one of those right next to the huge bed.

625 walked up to it and opened the cabinet. So many bottles, real glass bottles of so many shapes and sizes and so many colors of liquid inside them all.

He grabbed one that seemed plain square with an opaque green juice inside. He opened it up and inhaled.

That was a strange smell, strange enough to bring out a cringe in 625's lip. It was something he was familiar with. Besides the dry, musty and nutty scent came something strong and slightly corrosive. It was a smell he normally only associated with rotting food. Yet here it was in a good drink, with none of its putrid companions 625 was so used to smelling alongside it. It was confusing. Either way the bottle touted itself as _exclusive_ and _superior_, so he closed his eyes and took a swill.

625 gasped and heaved as the juice flowed down his throat. That slightly corrosive smell was infinitely stronger as a taste. It made him cough and wheeze. But something strange happened. As the vapors wafted up through his sinuses and into his head, it filled him with a light and giddy feeling. It was over in a minute, but common sense told him that if it got into his gut, then it would get into his blood, giving a longer lasting high. This was perfect for what was to come.

He closed the bottle and opened more, smelling each one. All had the scent of that chemical, some stronger than others, but all had unique smells on top of it that all promised unique flavors. 625 let his nose guide him as he picked out the ones he liked the best.

Soon his bag was packed and he disappeared back into the air vent.

* * *

625 waited laying on the bed of a dorm he knew wasn't his own. The sikly smooth blankets from before were folded over and over again and still they draped over the sides. The long stems with their crystalish spheres were thrown about the bed and the floor, just as promised. On every available surface were burning pipes of pannsalt jelly, all changing hues from blue to red to green, yellow, purple, and orange, bathing the darkened room in a rainbow of color and filling it with the scent of some far away tropical beach. The table, normally in the corner, now sat next to the bed with several bottles of dry and toasty beverages and two long, thin glasses looking almost more like test tubes. The atmosphere was perfect. Everything was perfect. 

The door clicked and slid open. 625 knew who that was, the real inhabitant of this dorm, experiment 624. He thought he was prepared for whatever he may see. He was wrong.

624 raised a single eyebrow and instantly knew what was going on. She walked inside so slowly. She reached back with her paws and brushed back her tendrils, stroking them fluidly all the way to their bulbous ends with eyes and mouth partly closed. The way she moved was as smooth as water. It made 625 light headed. Or maybe that was his drink it was impossible to tell. Either way he liked it. But what was definitely her doing was his watering mouth and chest feeling like it was filled with some ultralight gas.

624 let her head turn only part way to her bed. Out of the corner of her eye 624 stared at 625 with narrowed eyes and a sinister smile.

625's pulse was sent into a panic as adrenaline shot through his system. He noticed everything about her. The way she let her tendrils hang over her shoulders, how she propped her hands up on the side of her chest, how she was halfway turned away not quite giving him a full view of her, he noticed everything.

He knew exactly what he was going to say at that moment, but the adrenaline made it hard to say. He was so afraid of stuttering in this condition. He was amazed he was able to keep his usual smug and sly face on at all. She was waiting. It was now or never. He swallowed the pond of saliva that had pooled beneath his tongue and opened his mouth.

"Evening."

Amazing to him even more is that he was able to keep his same smug and sly voice while talking. He swore what would come out of his would be a squeak or a scratchy breath. But he'd managed to keep his cool under pressure. 624 smiled a bit wider. He'd gotten past the first part, everything else should be a breeze.

"Evening." 624 answered back.

So 625 thought he answered in a cool, smooth voice, so he thought. But her response was in the voice of a polished woodwind instrument. Her voice was musical. It was intoxicating. It had perfect pitch and perfect inflection. How could he possibly measure up to that? Still, the moment had to pass and there were more things he needed to say.

"Care for a drink?" 625 asked.

"I'd love one." 624 answered, again in that enchanting voice of hers.

625 had a bottle specially picked out for this occasion. The fluid inside was a hot pink, just like she was, and it had the non-sweet taste of the earthy, tart fruits that grew in arid climates. It was just right for her.

625 popped the top off the bottle with his claw and filled the glass almost to the rim.

624 picked up the glass and gave it the briefest of sniffs.

"Careful there that stuff's pretty strong…"

625's eyes widened and his mouth dropped open as he saw 624 up end and swallow the entire glassful in a single gulp. She filled herself another and drank half of that.

"You've just got to get used to it that's all."

624 set the glass back down on the table and climbed up onto the bed. She grasped at the blankets, clutching them tight as she pulled herself up. As soon as she atop the bed she dropped to her hands and feet and not so much crawled but slid her paws across the blanket over to 625. She swung her tendrils over her head and wrapped them around 625's neck, settling their bulb ends just behind his ears, rubbing them slightly.

With that, all of 625's anxiety melted away and he was as cool right then and there as he'd ever been. 624 pressed her nose up against his. She smelled like sweet citrus fruit. 625's mouth watered all over again.

"So," He asked after swallowing. "What do you say?"

She didn't answer. She just pulled at his head with her tendrils and gave him the unmistakable look of a bloodthirsty predator closing in on its kill. And that's exactly what she did.

624 leapt up and landed on top of 625, startling him just long enough to pin down his shoulders and plant and slow lick starting from the bottom of his nose and ending atop his forehead.

She was upon him.

* * *

Darkness surrounded. The spheres on most of the stems atop the bed had been squished, leaving the sheets soaked with their floral yet woody perfume. All the bottles on the table were opened and some missed decent portions of their potables. One glass was in pieces on the floor while the other was on its side on the table. Only a couple tubes of Pannsalt Jelly still burned. At their last ends they filled the room with a scent of charcoal as well as tropical beaches. 

In the little bed, covered by Jumba's exorbitant blankets lay experiments 624 and 625. 624 had her arms curled into her chest and her head pressed into the golden mane of 625. 625 lay on his side with all four arms wrapped around 624, holding her tightly against himself. One of her tendrils was curled up in 625's mane while the other sprawled itself out lazily over the bed, its bulb end resting just inside 625's lips as he lightly sucked it in his sleep.

Both of them slept without making a single noise. Both of them dreamt of last night, and many nights to come. But duty always calls, and the dream would not last long.

"Experiment 625!" Jumba's voice boomed out over the speakers in the dorm, "Reporting is to main conference chamberses."

The roar was enough to cause both 624 and 625 to jump out of bed and hit their heads against the cupboards just above. Though is was 625 who made an impression of his forehead in the metal.

* * *

"Ah! Ha! Ha! Ha!" Jumba shouted out jovially. "My ultimate 625. There is you are being!" 

625 and 624 walked through the spiral shutting door into the huge, empty circular chamber of the lab's main conference hall, or at least the one in this section of it. The room coned downward toward the center stage where Jumba stood on a great glass platform in the floor.

"Is time for to be your very first mission 625." Jumba continued.

625 walked down a path beside the benches leading to the platform on which Jumba stood. 624 walked right beside him, holding his arm and her tendrils wrapped around his shoulders. Jumba wore not his lab attire, but a nice purple suit for this occasion. He stepped to the edge of the platform and lights lit up projecting a 3D hologram of the blueprints of a large building into the domed chamber. 625 kept walking until he and 624 were on the edge of the platform with Jumba.

"How are you being 624?" Jumba asked.

"Exceptional." 624 answered, bringing out a smile in 625's face.

"625!" Jumba exclaimed "This is being your very first mission! Err… I already was saying that. Oh I am so exited! What you see before you are floor plans of First Federal bank of Turo, capitol system of Federation.  
"It is now that First Federal Turo Bank is holding largest private stockpile of fine cut Etherite stones."

625 and 624 looked up as the image above changed into that of an exquisite gemstone. 624's eyes lit up and filled with tears looking at the image. Each face of the gem shone in a different color. While some were transparent, others were opaque. The colors and the transparencies of each face changed with the angle it was looked upon. Blues, purples, reds and greens and sparkled like stars. It was a burning, glowing kaleidoscope that could be held in the palm of even the smallest of hands. And that was just a hologram.

"Etherite is made of Oxygen and Nitrogen crystallized within the atmospheres of hyperdense neutron stars. Only within the extraordinary gravity of the neutron star can these elements, normally gaseous, be formed into crystalline structures. Etherite is harder than diamond, brighter than flame, and-"

"Beautiful!" 624 interrupted

"Yes." Jumba replied. "Is very beautiful… and valuable. Only small handful of specimens is being worth many millions! You, 625, are to be infiltrating First Federal Bank of Turo, and be snatching away Etherite treasure trove!"

"Get me some!" 624 shouted, almost jumping up and down like a child begging for her favorite toy.

"Ohhh 624 you are dickens you. Etherite hoard being contained within bank is being valued of over sixty billion federal credits. Is being enough to fill your dorm with Etherites, and still having left overs to fund small empire! He! Hah!"

"When do I leave?" 625 asked.

"As soon as you are being ready."

"I that case I'll need a day or two. I'll need the floor plans, passports, access to the lab's central computer, and a swank looking ship with a state of the art cloaking device."

"All done!" Jumba said, snapping his finger.

At that instant 624, as hyper as a toddler on a sugar high, tackled 625 to the ground and pressed her lips against his.

* * *

The ship was big, at least for a private yacht. It was the size of some destroyers. The smooth wedge shape and tan exterior coating of Iridium paint gave away that it was a first class vessel. Unlike the bulky, segmented stock ships, this one was seamless, smooth, and no one could tell without close inspection that it was made from more than a single piece. Only the wealthy among the wealthy could afford such a ship. Over a hundred million credits it cost to buy this thing, plus an extra sixty for the cloaking device. It was pocket change compared to the money to be made in only a short while. 

The inside was filled with real leather, carpeted floors, and only the sleekest of terminals. The captain's chair on the main bridge seated the only inhabitant. A seat perfectly contoured to fit Experiment 625.

"Passport verified." An inviting voice sounded through the comm. system. "Permission granted to land on docking pad three of the First National Bank of Turo. Welcome to Turo Danhondyn. We hope your stay here on the Federations capitol world is a most delightful one."

"Thank you." 625 answered. "I hope Turo is everything I ever heard it was."

With the press of a key the comm. system was cut. 625 spoke aloud to himself.

"Danhondyn, hah! That's gotta be the cheesiest name I've ever heard. Well as long as it works."

With the press of another key the ship's automatic docking sequence began, something else that stock vessels weren't equipped with.

* * *

A spiral shutting door opened and 625 was greeted with a hallway of glass and carpets suspended high above the dusk city lights. Flying cars and small ships buzzed this way and that between buildings many miles high. Giant holographic billboards dotted the skies and the highways shining their great advertisements in the faces of onlookers. Four tall lanky aliens without hair and great red robes bowed as soon as he stepped foot off of his ship. 

"Welcome to Turo sir Danhondyn." One of them said. "Your hotel, chauffer and restaurant services have all been reserved in advance. If there's anything I can get you sir-"

"A hot toasted sandwich." 625 blurted out. "three kinds of meat and lots of cheese."

"Of course sir, right away."

* * *

625 sat in a large cushy leather chair as he spoke to another of the lanky aliens. One more stood beside him with an Iridium plate carrying half of a sandwich and a tall frothy black drink. The office was small and private, with a wall spanning terminal to the left side and and a wall and ceiling spanning tinted window to the right. One had the view of the entire glowing city as it spanned its hundreds of kilometers until it finally reached the mountains. 625 had never seen anything so vast and grand as this. Even the great labs of Galaxy Defense Industries' illegal bio-weapons division, as gigantic as they were, were like a grain of sand compared to this.

"May I see your claim of transfer sir Danhondyn?" the one on the desk asked.

"Right here buddy." 625 answered, his mouth filled with sandwich and his hand extended with a large ovoid disk. After inserting the disk into the computer…

"Two billion credits to be transferred to our protection in three, two, one… What the hell! There's nothing in here it's a fake account!"

"Oh, too bad." 625 responded.

"Now activating special command 625." Spoke an automated voice on speaker.

"What the hell is special command 625?" The man at the desk asked.

The lights turned out, shutters fell over the windows, and force fields went up over the shutters.

"Oh that?" 625 answered. "That's a little app. I wrote which I remote installed into your network after hacking into it. I named it after myself."

"What do you want?"

"The sixty billion in Etherite you got stashed here."

"You have to be joking. Even if you did disable our entire network this place is crawling with security. You won't be able to step outside the door without being apprehended."

"And that's the beautiful thing." 625 said, finishing the last bite of his sandwich. "The security's going to help me, because that little app. I mentioned is also onboard Turo Prime's positron defense satellites, which I'm now controlling via neural interface. With just a thought I can vaporize this whole damn bank, and take out half the city along with it."

The alien next to 625 dropped his plate and ran to the side of the office pounding away keys into a terminal. A picture came up of a three large metal spheres in orbit around the planet and their vitals.

"He's not kidding." The alien said. "Those satellites are at maximum charges and they're all aimed right at us!"

"Well…" The other spoke. "It seems we have no choice but to cooperate."

"I knew you'd see things my way." 625 responded. "By the way, that was a good sandwich."

* * *

Down a long metal hall strobe lights flashed as armored doors and force fields rose to let through experiment 625 and his escort of a dozen raptor guards in full armored suits, and then slamming back down again as they passed. 

The final door opened into a rectangular vault loaded on all walls with glass crates. Each crate was loaded with tiny glass boxes, and in each box was a flawless, perfectly cut five gram Etherite stone.

"You know where my ship is." 625 spoke.

In less than an hour, 625's ship was loaded with the Etherite, and he and his stolen goods blasted off into space. And though a small armada was there to intercept him, they dared not make a move against him or even block his path so long as he controlled the defense satellites.

As soon as 625's ship made its jump and he was out of range of the satellites' control, the armada gave chase, but could not track him with his cloaking device.

* * *

624 threw all her weight down onto 625, forcing him to fall onto his back onto the bed. The impact threw the little Etherites sprinkled about into the air. 625 grabbed a handful of them, lifted his hand to the back of 624's neck, and let them go. 624 arched her body forward in rapture as the Etherites rolled down her back, making their crackling noise as they tumbled against each other. 

Life only got better the more 625 lived it.


	4. Chapter 4

Author Note: Sorry about not updating in so long. But my wrists suddenly started aching two weeks ago and I had to give them time to rest and heal before I put them through any more rigorous activity.You must alays rest and allow your body to heal after a tough workout. If you don't... well that's what causes repetitive stress injuries.

* * *

625 stared at the screen for how long he couldn't tell. Possibly it had been hours but he had spaced so much that not even his super-brain could tell what time it was. A gunshot fired through the chamber alerting him back to reality. No, it was a gunshot sound from the screen. 625 blinked and shook his head. The image of the highly improbable seventies spy serial still flickered on the screen. It must've been a marathon.

625 was back to his senses now. A glance over at the chronometer above the screen read 866-348-025-71, all in green Turian base sixteen numbers. A microsecond's worth of calculations converted the time into five forty two in the morning on whatever date it was currently. He looked back at the screen, back at mission unstoppable.

Once again the heroes were facing down their arch enemy Dr. MacMurdock. The evil doctor laughed waving about his graying red hair sticking straight like the end of a broom. His lab coat and golden tie blew backward in the wind revealing all but the jacket of a luxurious navy themed dress suit. 625 couldn't figure tell what was stupider, that hairdo, or the fact that his coat and tie were blowing in the wind even though he was in a fully enclosed room with no fans. The heroes, the toothpick of a wannabe pimp with the blonde afro and the black bodybuilder with the shades and locks had their hand bound and tied together behind a pole extending from the ceiling. The small metal grate platform they stood on at the end of the pole hovered just feet above a large glass pit filled with tarantulas.

"The Red Kneed Tarantula is the most venomous, most aggressive of all the species." Dr. MacMurdock said in his impossibly fake Russian accent, not even matching his name, more Scottish than deep fried Mars Bars.

625 wasn't sure if the Red Kneed Tarantula even existed. And if it did, it probably wasn't very venomous, or aggressive for that matter.

"You will make the most delicious meal for my babies." Dr MacMurdock continued. "Then nothing will stand between me and the secret UFO files of Fort Knox! Hah! Hah! Haaah! I wish you both good day."

Dr. MacMurdock walked away into the shadows, the phantom wind blowing his coat back the whole time.

The pole the heroes were tied to bean to lower into the pits. The spiders started to get restless.

"We gotta' stop that wack-ass mo-fo before he can build his death ray!" Shouted the white guy in his mind bogglingly erroneous jive. "how we gonna' get out a' this pit man?"

"Don't you worry 'bout a thing baby." The black guy answered in a slightly more realistic accent. "Luckily for the both of us I mastered backwards rope climbin' in high school."

UFO files of Fort Knox? Backwards rope climbing? The cheese was so thick you could probably make nachos out of the mood. 625 giggled to himself some more as the pole lowered down further into the tank of spiders and the black guy tried to make himself look like he wasn't being pulled up by strings.

Then the shot cut to a close up of one of the scurrying Red Kneeds, the segmented body, the long numerous legs the way it crawled and its spikey hair. 625's heart stopped for a moment when he saw that thing. The show's resolution was so bad that they looked like orange and black blobs from the previous shots. But now he saw one close up. Suddenly he could hear the rattling all around him. He could feel the things crawling on him. The indistinguishable smell of burning copper that they carried with them. He was inside a rusted air vent with those things crawling all over him. Their dozen glowing green eyes and their three arm like mouthparts each splitting into three pronged pincers at the ends. Those things that did this to him, he was back with them. But he was back only for a second before finally realizing the image in front of him only vaguely resembled those creatures. He hit the remote control stuck to the seat by dried soda next to him. The remote shattered, but it had the desired effect. The screen went to static and then shut down.

The breath was stolen from 625's lungs. He became dizzy. He felt so cold. Even his insides were cold. All his hairs stood on end and his hands gripped the arms of the chair so hard that he crushed them. The things, whatever they were, bared only a superficial resemblance to Red Kneed Tarantulas, it was enough to send him into a flashback. Even after the fact, his panic soaked through to the bone.

625's stomach gurgled. He blinked his eyes and his heart began to slow down.

"I need a sandwich." He whispered to himself.

625 leaned forward and let the weight of his body pull him from the chair. His butt pealed off the glue of dried soda and crumbs. He flopped onto the floor quickly righting himself. The fur on his backside was sticky, matted, and laced with crumbs from the bottom of his shoulder blades down to the backs of his knees. It was a disgusting feeling, but 625 didn't care. He was used to it.

The shutter on the window flipped open automatically as 625 tapped his claws against it. He lifted his head up to look outside. Clouds covered the skies pouring rain down into the little pond trapping the now derelict ship he lived in. 625 quickly took a bite of his baked roast beef, swiss and dijon on sourdough before looking back out the window.

Lightning struck the tip of a cliff about a hundred yards away. The ships hull rattled from the thunder and the light was bright enough to blind most humans. 625 didn't bat an eyelid at the sudden lightning strike. Instead he gave an apathetic burp before tossing the rest of the sandwich in his mouth and swallowing after only four chews.

625 lay his elbows on the windowsill and rested his chin on them, looking out into the storm. The rain was intense. Lighting flashed several times in a minute. It was just like that day, the day that changed his life. 625 bit his lip as a single tear fell from his right eye soaking the fur beneath. Of all the things from his former life he had to remember tonight, why couldn't it have been this one that he could just pass up? The rain still came down to remind him of it. 625 could hear every single drop on the surface of the hull and isolate the exact location of each one, giving himself a perfect mental 3D image of the ships exterior. However much he wanted not to relive those events, he stayed at the window staring out into the storm. The fuzzy images started to clear up.

* * *

The rain came down so hard 625 felt like he was being tossed through a cylinder with thousands of stones. But even if he was tossed with boulders it wouldn't hurt him. It was the wetness he hated, especially the cold wetness. The storm passing through the tip of the smallest continent on Quelta Quan was the nastiest seen in a long time and had knocked out several sensor stations along the coast. Jumba insisted it was the perfect cover for 625's latest mission. 625 thought it was just an excuse for Jumba to torment him, which he suspected the maniacal scientist enjoyed very much.

Only his fully enclosed suit protected him from the rain. What it looked like didn't really matter since it rendered him partially invisible. 625 dashed up the surface of the cliff on all fours appearing only as a slight distortion in the light, and in this kind of weather, no one would notice that anyway.

Only his paws were uncovered. They had to be since that was the only way he could climb such slippery surfaces. He didn't like it in the least since it meant getting his paws wet and cold. But at least the rest of him was dry under that suit.

625 climbed atop the cliff and scanned around in infrared. The facility was just off in the distance. It was a plain square building covered in blue vines with jelly filled bulbs. It was old and decrepit. It had been abandoned for the past ten years. But there was still a sensor tower sticking up out of the roof and guards patrolling the perimeter. It was so closely guarded because of what was inside, an immensely powerful nuclear accelerator couple with a fusion based magnet, the only type powerful enough to control what it created.

625 recalled Jumba's briefing.

* * *

"Back during days of contractings under Galactic Federation," Jumba said. "Galaxy defense Industries had developed prototype of powerful new weapons system, the HyperGlow. A Gamma Ray Lazer capable of penetrating any known form of strong force shielding. Is still being kept in old lab where developed."

"Why didn't they remove it and take it to a more secure location?" 625 asked.

"Hah! Hah! Only I am knowing 625. Was being kept in place because of locking mechanism designed by me."

"You worked on it?"

"I was part being of primary design team. Locking mechanism is such that if it were to be unsuccessfully hack-ed, fusion chamber would be releasing tsunami of ultra-violet hot plasma throughout facility. But fortunately I can give you base formulas for to have been used for current locking sequences."

"I'm assuming that means the place is under heavy guard?"

"Of course, but that will be being not a problem for a being such as 625."

* * *

625 pressed a tiny button on the side of his faceplate with the tip of his claw. In a flash, hundreds of pages of mathematical jargon all to create the single most complicated fractal design he had ever seen. Even his super brain had trouble grasping all of its intricacies. The fractal was used to create the locking mechanism that held the HyperGlow firmly in place atop the Fusion reactor connected to it. A single wrong move and the containment on the reactor would drop and he would get the scorching of his life. but 625 had never made a mistake before, and wasn't planning to start any time soon.

The jargon disappeared after a moment and 625 focused his eyes, zooming in on the abandoned fortress. There were only four guards, all of that short lizard like race, the one that almost inevitably produced soldiers. They stood their ground in their ground at the front entrance in their cream suits and little rifles. The front gate was the only way in or out. Jumba told him this. There was only four of them though, a tribute to the storm. Jumba was smarter than he came off as. There was no way he could sneak by. If he tried to fight them they'd sound the alarm and then the mission would be a failure. How was he going to get past them? It all came back to the golden rule. What was the easiest possible way of getting inside? In this case the easiest possible way of getting inside was strapped to his back.

625 ran across the rocky ground in great leaps, faster than most race animals could sprint. The sensor tower atop the fortress started its sweep. The orb atop the tower glowed a pale red. It would trip the alarm if it sensed any unauthorized approach. 625's suit protected him from light and thermal detection, but the tower could se through his disguise, but even in could be fooled. 625 landed and flattened himself against the ground. A tap to a second button on his faceplate send a tiny electric charge through a needle sticking from the suit straight into 625's spinal cord. All of 625's sensed instantly went blank. He could not see, feel, hear, touch, taste, or receive any kind of signal through his antennae. Still conscious though, he counted eight seconds.

The orb on top of the fortress flashed bright white for a split second, sending out a wave of energy across the land and through the air. The wave hit 625 and bounced right back at the orb. 625's pulse had ceased along with his breathing. The signal obtained by the sensor tower was that of a small plant or fungus. Even though it wasn't there before, the limited AI of the tower would draw no conclusions from it.

The eighths second went by in 625's mind. The tiny electrical charge stopped and senses slowly came back. Blurry, static, tingle, but after another ten seconds they were acute again. 625 jumped up and continued his mad dash toward the fortress. The rain cascaded down onto his suit like a waterfall. The wind knocked down small trees. Lightning flashed every few seconds, often hitting the sensor tower. But that would do him no good. It was insulated and reinforced. It didn't matter though. In less than a minute 625 would be at the front entrance, closer than the shortest range of the tower's sensors.

Light conversation was made at the front gate, none of the guards thinking anything of what was about to happen.

"But you didn't answer my question." One of the reptilians spoke up over the rain and through his faceplate. "What do you think of the Galaxy Defense scandal?"

"I'm trying not to think of it." Another answered. "I'm on their payroll aren't I?"

"What about you Xager? You've been quiet this whole time." The first one asked again, motioning this time toward a third.

"I think it was just a few unscrupulous researchers bent on doing it just because they can. It was probably done behind Jumba's back too. I mean, with a pres. and CEO as anally scrupulous as Dr. Hamsterveil there's no way they'd have an entire sub-company devoted solely to bio-weapons."

"Yeah? And I've got a star system to sell you." A fourth suddenly interrupted. "I haven't trusted that rat thing ever since I saw his picture in the briefs. There's just something about that leer of his. The man is psychotic I know it."

There was a splat in the mud. All four of the guards spun around and pointed their rifles forward into the blinded rain.

"Who's there!" The first guard shouted out.

Even without his suit 625 would be invisible from the intense storm. But he wanted to be seen. Circumstance was at his advantage in that these guards were not being told what it was they were guarding. Only the highest members of the Grand Council, Bureau, Office, and Committee knew of what was being kept here. The Grand Tribunal was completely in the dark. By the time anyone even realized this thing was gone it would be too late.

625 whacked his forearms together and he faded into opacity. He stepped forward into visibility. The guards moved forward with their guns poised on him.

"This area is under military quarantine by the United Galactic Federation." The first guard barked. "Unauthorized personnel are strictly prohibited. You will submit to search and escort or be arrested."

625 unclamped the locks on his neck. His helmet fell into pieces and fell on the ground.

"Oh believe me I'm authorized to be here." 625 spoke so smugly.

"Under who's authority?"

"My friend's here. I think you'll find him in this box."

625 unclamped more locks around his waist and the metal briefcase on his back dropped to the ground. The case was opened. The guards looked inside.

"Oh my god!" One exclaimed.

"Are those real?" asked another.

"Yeah. They're real, there's no mistaking it those are the real things."

The briefcase was packed full of tiny cut stones, stones that even in this darkness caught enough light to glow. Each face shined in a completely different color.

"There's two hundred million in Etherite sitting right in front of you boys." 625 siad, looking at his fingernails as if nothing could possibly go wrong. "That's fifty mil for each of you. Ten times what most people make in a lifetime. It's enough for each of you to retire.

* * *

The door slammed shut behind 625. He smiled his haughty smile and laid his hands on his hips, nodding his head on yet another example of brilliance in simplicity. Bribary was the oldest tactic in the history of espionage, and it was still the most effective. As soon as the last trace of wind from outside had ceased 625's smile turned into scream as he dropped to the floor and rolled around swiping all four hands through his fur.

625's head was soaked and he hated it with a passion. If there was one thing he hated more than being wet, it was being wet and cold. 625 stood back up.

"I-Hate-Being-Wet!" He shouted, hitting his palm against an ear with the start of each new word.

"I-Hate-Being-Wet!" He shouted again, hitting his other palm against his other ear with the start of each new word.

625 shook his head to dislodge the last of the excess water. It made the fur on his head stand on end. Two more clamps released and the entire suit, as well as the need once stuck into his spine, fell apart leaving 625 in his plain fur, witch the exception of a comm. still attached to his left ear. 625 tapped the side of the comm.

"Jumba, I'm inside."

From the comfort of his lab on the other side of the planet, Jumba sat at his desk in his office and gazed into a monitor showing everything 625 saw. 624 sat on the desk itself, she too gazing into the monitor.

"Being very excellent 625." Jumba replied. "Inside of laboratory is abandoned. No one is being allowed inside."

"Seems the security's been majorly lazed what with so few people actually knowing how important it is to protect this place." 625 said right back. "By the way is Pink there?"

_"Do you really have to ask that question?"_ Came the lightest of voices that never failed to tickle the back of 625's neck. _"You know I can never get enough of seeing you in action."_

That Tantalog voice made 625 jitter and smile. In every time she ever tried to give him that feeling, not once has she failed. 624 was watching, and she was using her sweet voice. 625 knew he had better make this fantastic.

"I'll get back to you as soon as I'm done unlocking the HyperGlow. 625 out."

625 released his nail from the comm. Now was his first chance to really look around this building. The chamber was large and square. Old computers, sensor and drafting machines littered the room, none of them functional. They were all covered in some kind of glasslike resin. There were no lights except what little came from the few working monitors flickering static. But that was enough for 625 to see. Dust hung in the air like a translucent carpet. Almost everything was either broken or too worn to work anymore. Most of it was covered in some kind of glass like resin. 625 sniffed the air. It was stale and musty, along with the scent of many oxidized metals. But there was something else. The smell of the resin was organic. Something alive had coated all of the equipment with it. It could only mean strange animals came to call this place home. Something about this place made him nervous. He didn't know what, but his instincts had never failed him before. He took a few steps forward. The rattling started, as if someone was shaking a bottle full of tiny wooden cubes. It was over in just the next instant.

625 stopped at put his nail back to the comm.

"What was that?" 625 spoke hurriedly.

"That is being sound of anxiety by scythera. Your presence is uneasing them." Jumba answered. "It seems they have been making mondo home of old lab."

"What the hell are scythera?" 625 whispered in almost a panic.

"Are nothing to be worrying about. Are nothing more than harmless, mildly venomous, arthropodic predtators with trichotomous anatomy."

"What do they prey on?"

"Smaller arthropods."

"Is that where all the glasslike stuff is coming from?"

"Is that which is to be used for forming artificial cave structures for to use as sleeping areas."

_"Your not scared are you?"_ 624 interrupted.

"No!" 625 shouted back. "Just a little… disconcerted that's all."

_"I wasn't trying to insult you. I agree, those things sound frightening. I sure as hell wouldn't want to be where you are now."_

"Thanks… that makes me feel better."

625 took his nail off of the comm. "Yeah right." He whispered.

625 started walking. The rattling started up again, one at first, then two, then three. Soon he was able to count seven different sources of the lacking noise. It got louder the faster he moved, and stopped when he stopped moving. He wanted to just freeze so the sound would stop altogether. He knew the exact location of each one that was making noise, and from that he could gather that he was surrounded by these things, these scythera. Each one hid in its own small crevice, not daring to wander out into the open. There were seven that made noise. But how many were there that weren't? If he changed to his thermal vision he could find out, but he didn't want to know. He walked as slowly as he reasonably could, just to keep that skin crawling rattling down to a minimum. He tried to take some comfort in the fact that they were making that noise because he was scaring them. But it didn't do much good. Soon 625 came to his target.

Just a few meters above him was the covering of an air vent. 625 looked up. Nothing was in his way between the vent and himself.

"Is being vent that leads directly to central chamber containing Hyperglow." Jumba spoke through the comm. "Must be climbing inside and using it."

"Will those things be inside of it?" 625 asked.

"Most likely. But they are being harmless."

"Try telling that to my numbed up feet."

625 tapped on the wall. The rattling came from inside the vent. The sounds blended into each other. An exact count was impossible, but 625 figured the number must be in the dozens, if not well over a hundred.

625 felt light so light headed he thought he was going to fall over. His stomach rolled at the sound and his hands and face clenched themselves involuntarily. 625 took a deep breath as he placed two hands on the wall.

"Harmless." He whispered as he took step after step, each one creating a wave of rattling from the vent. "Harmless invertebrates with trichotomous anatomy. They rattle because I scare them. I scare them. I'm stronger than them. Harmless, midly venomous…"

625 shuttered at that last comment. "Don't say that again you idiot."

625 climbed all the way up peered through the grill of the vent. The rattling became more intense than it ever was previously. 625 froze in place. After a minute or so, the rattling died down.

"Harmless… little… arthropods…"

625reached up and lifted the cover from its vent, and dropped it to the floor. The impact triggered more rattling. It came from everywhere at once, including… right next to his ear.

625 turned his head and finally saw what made the sound. It stared right at him, propped all the way up as far as its legs could push it to look threatening. It didn't need the display. 625's heart stopped, this time on its own as he stared into those nine eyes in their triangle figure, three to a side.

Its head was almost three centimeters across, covered on the top with tiny thorns. Its mouth just below the eyes was a triangle just like the eyes themselves, with a folded limb sticking out of each side. The head itself was a triangle, and attached to the two sides facing back were side by side fat bodies that thinned into tails with stingers at their ends poised right at 625's eyes. Three legs jutted from the underside of the creatures front, along with six more that jutted in threes from each of its two tails.

One look at 625 and the scythera unfolded the limbs lining its mouth into three sections, the last of which ended in three pronged pincers. The pincers beat open and shut in a blur of speed making the rattling 625 hated so much.

625 screamed and fell off the edge of the vent. He curled his ball form as soon as he hit the ground. Rattling everywhere. Thousands of them, together they sounded like a firestorm. He felt them. He felt them dropping from above onto him. Their legs ended in barbs that gripped his flesh just before they jumped off and scurried away to find better hiding places. They all landed right on top of him, five to ten at a time. They tumbled over each other, over him trying to find a secure foothold to leap from. 625 could neither count the number that were there or how long the waterfall of scythera lasted. He didn't want to. All he knew was that there were hundreds of them, and that the downpour of them seemed to last forever. They bounced off him. They stuck their legs in his ears, in between his toes, and on far more personal areas. 625 wasn't even aware that his entire body had gone numb, that his heart rate was so high it would've killed a weaker being, that he bit down on his legs so hard that he was bleeding into his mouth.

At long last they stopped. The legs were poking him no more. The rattling was fading into the distance. 625 kept himself in his ball, so afraid of what? He was afraid of the static screaming into his right ear. But as his heart slowed, and his body became less tightened, the static started become coherent.

_"What did they do to you? Are you OK baby? Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. Speak to me! Answer me please."_

It was 624 talking to him through the comm. As panicked as he still was, he was not about to let her share in it.

"I'm fine!" 625 screamed like a child being tortured.

625 unrolled and plopped down on the ground trying to recatch his breath. Only then did he notice the taste of blood in his mouth. His ankles were warm and wet. He must've bit down on them harder than he realized. 625 lifted his hand to his face and saw it covered in the glasslike film.

"Ahhhggg!" 25 screamed again, rolling around, trying to pick off the film from his body and throw it anywhere away from himself. The stuff stuck to him like cling wrap.

"625! Answering me now!" Jumba shouted.

"There's no way in hell I'm going back in there!" 625 shouted back.

"All scythera are gone. Is being safe now."

"Yeah. Well I wanna' be sureof that first."

625 pulled the comm. out of his ear and threw it inside the vent. It bounced around the sides making quite a racket. But no rattling came from within.

"Ohh god… I guess I'm going to have to do it now."

* * *

A palm hit open the grating of an air vent. It flew across the room. 625 jumped head first out of the opening and landed his head on the floor below. He jumped back up and scrambled about trying desperately to dislodge all the film that wrapped around his body several times which he accumulated in his trip through the ducts.

625 threw the last ball of clingy film at the wall and hunched over breathing heavily.

"625, are you listening?" Jumba said over comm. "You are at HyperGlow chamber."

625 stood up straight and looked around. The room was a great dome. He had landed just on the edge of the walkway surrounding it. He looked over the sides. The floor dropped almost a hundred meters until it stopped in an extreme tinted polymer. 625 could see the huge glowing orb within the fusion chamber through the tinted polymer. He looked up. There it was! On an island floating in the middle of the room was a small clear dome held to the island with what looked to be fluffy cotton candy. It was the locking mechanism. It was as soft as cotton candy, but one error in dismantling it and it would cut the circuit to the reactor's containment field. Beneath the clear dome was the HyperGlow. It looked rather plain for something so extraordinary, like a normal, single barrel ship mounted cannon, unpainted of course. Whatever the case, 625 needed to get that thing out of that dome and carry it far away from the fortress.

Metal ropes extending from the walkway held aloft the island, that and a column of tubing running from the center of the island down to the reactor. 625 grabbed the tubing and climbed it toward the island. The rope was oxidized and pieces black crust fell off landing on the polymer floor below. 625 climbed faster, trying to beat the now crumbling rope to the central island. The rope snapped. 625 dove forward and grabbed the edge of the island. He quickly flipped himself forward onto the grate floor.

625 looked down to find his toe almost touching the cotton candy like structure surrounding the dome.

_"Wow! That was close."_ 624 said through the comm.

"You could say that again." 625 answered.

"_So do you think you can do this?"_

"If not, I hope you like your men well done."

After scooting his foot back from the lock, 625 looked up and thought back to what Jumba told him about how to disassemble it.

* * *

"The locking mechanism is quite complex." Jumba exclaimned. "But is also very soft. Lightest of touching can be damaging it."

"Of course we all know what happens then." 625 answered. "So how to I unlock it."

"Lock must be disassembled at nanovisual level. I have bought for you simple deconstructive nanomachines for task. You must be continuously programming them for to accomplish task correctly. Be studying fractal designs for lock very carefully 625, must be doing this correctly or else."

* * *

625 hit his stomach and coughed up a tiny keyboard and screen, along with what looked to be a tiny pen. They landed at his feet.

Immediately 625 went to work. He hooked the screen to the keyboard and pressed the button on the back of the pen. A mist sprayed out of the tip and floated down onto the fuzz below.

625 typed furiously on the keyboard, programming and reprogramming the behavior of the nanos in the mist to take apart the lock in an infinitesimally precise manner. The entire fractal design was ingrained in his head, all he had to do now was make sense of it. It wasn't an easy task, not even for 625, but it was one he was managing.

"Only a few more pages of code to change." 625 whispered to himself, altering a single path of code for the sixth time. His fingers moved so fast even his own eyes had trouble keeping up with them. "Done!

625 looked up and saw the fuzz breaking apart strand by strand, evaporating into a green smoke with the smell of ammonia and burning plastic. All the tiny details had been taken care of. That meant that there was no more reprogramming to do. He could sit back and watch the fuzzy lock slowly evaporate.

But then the rattling came back. This time there were not hundreds, but thousands. Possibly there were tens of thousands. But something was different. It was distant and it came from all directions at once. Where was it all coming from? And what was causing it?

It was the smell. The smell of ammonia and burning plastic from the evaporating lock was setting them off. But the smoke could only reach a small space. They had to be packed so tight that if one went off it would trigger a domino effect. But where were they? The smoke was drifting straight up so that's the only place they could be.

The ceiling. The ceiling seemed solid, it was too dark to make out any movement, but 625 knew what had to be. The entire ceiling was covered with scythera. They had to packed probably fifty or more per square meter.

625 blinked his eyes and saw the ceiling in infrared.

There were not thousands, not hundreds of thousands, but millions of them, scythera on top of scythera. It looked like a convulsing carpet, and every last one of them were clacking their pincers making that godawful noise. 625 did the first thing that came to mind.

"Aaahhhhhhgggggg!"

He screamed louder than he'd ever screamed before. The scream startled them. That triggered the landslide.

Every last one of them dropped from the ceiling. 625 looked straight up in shock only thinking how this must be like being trapped under a collapsing building. They fell. 625 hunched over and covered his head as the mass of them landed right ontop of him. On top of him, and on top of the still evaporating lock, tearing it to bits.

The next thing 625 knew, he was engulfed in a blinding purple light and a searing pain unlike any he'd ever experienced or even imagined. Everything disintegrated in the light. The comm., walkway, the island, the Hyperglow, and the Scythera were all reduced to ash in an instant.


	5. Chapter 5

It was minutes, or maybe it was hours. Either way who the hell cared? At least that's what 625 thought. The rain still hadn't cleared up. In fact it was beating down on the hull as hard as ever now. Although the sky was not quite as dark as it was the last time 625 was paying any attention to anything at all. 625 blinked and noticed his eyes were chapped from having kept them open so long, staring at the rain through the kitchen window.

The memories all crept back to him that night like a lamprey sucking at your ankle that you just couldn't get rid of. Beyond irritating, it was painful, but not painful enough to warrant anything drastic like seeking the help of others. Besides, that would've taken effort, effort 625 just didn't have in him anymore.

625 knew how to get rid of those memories, to be a peace until they dared to start sucking and biting at his ankles again. He didn't want to do it, but he knew he'd be trapped in that one moment of being caught in the radiation blast forever if he didn't. It was the one effort he was willing to take. Though he didn't want to, if being injected with mace would've had the same effect he'd have opted for that route. But it wouldn't. There was only one way to get rid of those memories once they started, and that was to let them live themselves out to the very end.

It was mind boggling to 625 how he came up with the near supernatural drive and ambition every time, but somehow he did it. 625 let his head drop and held his paws open in front of him. His ugly, disfigured, mutated paws. The only reason he didn't have them lopped off is because he needed them for his sandwich assembly. That bare, brown, scar covered skin of his paws, surrounded by the equally grotesque fur. The fur was like steel wool to the touch and had the color of something like a cross between rusty rocks and sulfuric waste. 625 remembered it all so clearly. That fur was softer than down, and smoother than silk. It was such a brilliant gold that whenever he looked at it he could almost swear he was glowing. Lord knows how many times he asked Jumba if he was made luminescent. And the skin, the skin, where it did show, was the soothing creamy tan of iridium. Its texture was like perfectly polished marble. Now his skin felt like a plastic bowl that had an unfortunate run in with a blow torch.

However much he wanted to look away, 625 kept staring at those paws. It's what made the memories pass quicker, and pass quicker they most certainly did.

* * *

The hideous Scithera all fell ontop of him, then a great flash of Violet, and then pain. 625 had felt pain before, but never like this. The pain was something he didn't have words for. It was so intense he couldn't focus on anything else. Every instinct, every fiber in his being screamed into his mind _make the pain stop!_ Then he realized, it was burning. This must have been what it felt like for normal creatures when they're burned. 625 had been shot with plasma, wadded through molten metal, and been sprayed with some of the harshest known corrosives, but he had never felt the pain of being burned. How powerful this violet light must be to cause him of all creatures this kind of pain was something to truly behold. 

Then it was all gone. The pain was over and 625 felt himself in a refreshing, cool darkness. But that wouldn't last. He looked up in relief, only to find _them_ plummeting toward him. The Scithera. They were just above him, falling, getting closer. But no matter how long they fell, they never quite reached him. 625 only hoped they wouldn't, because if they did, they would summon the violet light, and the pain would begin anew.

They did reach him, at last. Their legs hooked into his skin like giant barbs, and the flash of violet started again. Then there was the pain.

The cycle repeated itself so many times 625 lost count. How he lost count was beyond him; something in this time loop seemed to dull his mind. Each time he prayed the schithera would never reach him. Each time it took so long that it seemed they never would. But each time they did, and the pain began anew.

"625." A voice cried out from the darkness. "625 are you hearing me?"

It was the voice of 625's creator and guardian Dr. Jumba Jookiba.

The pain ebbed away. Darkness gave way to a light yellow blur. 625's body throbbed with regular ache and relief and ache again. It must've been a dream. The constant cycle of pain and relief with the light and the scithera must've been caused by the throbbing aches he felt now. The fact that he couldn't tell how many times it happened was proof that it was a dream. The job at the abandoned lab must've really done a number on him. Never again would he accept any mission that involved mildly venomous, predatorial arthropods.

Now at last 625 could wake up and be rid of that nightmare. Now he could go back to 624 and shower her with the affection and the gemstones she loved so much. She was always able to bring him out of any slump he'd been through so far.

"625." The voice said again. "Is amazing you are being alive. "

625 blinked his eyes several times. They felt different somehow, as if they were drooping.

The blur faded into clear vision. 625 was in a small circular room strapped to a metal table. The walls were a dull yellow totally covered in flashing yellow buttons. He recognized it as the lab's OR. He'd seen other experiments being treated there, but he'd never been strapped to the metal table himself.

"Can you speak?" Jumba asked.

"I can."

For a moment 625 didn't think he was the one who said those words. His voice was smooth, childlike and enticed tingles in all who listened to it. his voice was beautiful, this voice was not. This voice sounded like the quacking of a duck, that is I 625 would've known what a duck was back then. It was like some obnoxious noise making toy you'd buy at an amusement store. It took 625 some time to register that he was the one who said those words.

"My voice!" 625 cried. "What happened to my voice?"

"I am being so sorrying 625." Jumba said, shaking his head. "You were caught in blast of X and gamma radiation as containment field of fusion power plant destabilized. All of abandoned laboratory was vaporized, as was Hyperglow, and all life on tip of laboratory's peninsula. Your vocal cords were scarified in blast."

"That shouldn't have done this." 625 pleaded with Jumba as if he could change reality. "My voice should still be the same."

"Am sorrying once more 625." Jumba as almost crying then. "Radiation blast was on magnitude of many hundreds of times greater than any destructive force you had yet been exposed to. Is amazing you are even alive."

"Am I going to have this voice forever?" 625 pleaded again.

"Am afraid is being so."

625 was in too much shock at that moment to have any kind of emotional reaction to what he just heard. He let his head lean to the side and saw his paw strapped by metal bars to the table next to his face.

The paw… it was… it wasn't his own. 625 could swear he was looking at the paw of some other experiment. It wasn't his. His was gold brighter than gold itself. His skin was like smoothed velvet. This fur was coarse, bristley, and the color of earth toned vomit. The patched of bare skin on the palm and fingertips were hardened and a shade of greasy sandstone.

625 couldn't accept that he was looking at his own paw. Not until-

"As you are seeing," Jumba said. "Vocal cords are not only scarified parts."

"How much of me?" 625 whispered.

"All of you."

He was the symbol of perfection. His physical prowess was matched only by his physical beauty. The largest, most exquisitely colored and cut etherite in the galaxy could not equal his allure. Only one thing could. How would she react to him, seeing him like this. There was only one way he could know.

"I want to see myself." 625 commanded.

"No!" Jumba shouted. "You cannot! Will be too traumatic."

"Right now dammit!"

Jumba sighed and knelt over.

625's pulse skyrocketed at that moment. 624 aside, how would _he_ react to seeing his own image. Jumba said he was scarred. If his paw was any indication, it would not be pleasant. 625's breathing became shallow and Jumba started to rise. He was going to be some kind of deformed freak he knew it. But he had to see. He had to know just how deep and how vast these scars went. A lump formed in his throat and his eyes began to water. Jumba stood up straight. 625 looked into a plain square mirror.

When he first saw them, 625 believed he would never be able to fathom anything more hideous than the schithera. The horrid things with the unnatural single heads and split bodies, clawed arms coming out of their mouths, and bodies covered with barbs. And then there was that appalling rattle they made by beating their claws together. Nothing could ever be more revolting than that. That's what he swore when he saw them for the first time.

But he was wrong. There was something uglier. There was something so horrific that no words in no language could ever express it. 625 was looking at it.

What happened to him? What happened to his glimmering golden fur? What happened to his great loppy ears with their razor sharp tips? What happened to his perfect almond eyes? They were all gone. He was a scarred, disfigured, twisted, and unnatural shadow of his former self. He was once a showpiece, a trophy, the symbol of perfection, strength, superiority, and sex, by which all other symbols would be judged. Now he was a freak.

His ungliness of his fur only accentuated his now dirt colored nose, which further accentuated his eyes. Gone were the fierce and witty almonds, replaced by sagging flops of flesh. His ears were reduced to wiggling nubs, and his antennae and quills were gone entirely, along with his lower arms. And his deadly fangs were now the tackiest of buck teeth.

He didn't even want to know how it happened. But his wish was not to be.

"Antennae, quills, all disintegrated by radiation." Jumba whispered. "Lower arms damaged too badly for to save. Amputation was necessary. Canines were pitted and had to be shaved down. Rest of body is deformed permanently."

Permanently?

That word finally drove 625 over the edge. He would be like this forever. His legacy was gone. He would never be hailed as the founder of the galaxy's dominant species. A special place in the history books would be reserved for him under the word failure, but all that he could live with. The one thing beyond his ability to cope was what he was now compared to 624.

The precious 624, the only creature alive who could make him feel humble. Her fur was like a cloud. Her shape was beyond perfection, and the way she moved was as smooth as water. And she smelled like sweet citrus fruit. He would never forget that smell.

What was he now compared to her? He was less than nothing. He didn't deserve her anymore. And after hearing the word _permanent_, he knew he never would again.

625 couldn't hold back any longer. Tears streamed down his eyes, soaking his fur. His stomach felt like it was turning inside out. His breath was shot. His arms and legs jittered involuntarily. He grit his teeth together and clenched his fists. An anger unlike anything he knew built up inside of him. He tried holding it back, but he knew it would get the best of him sooner or later. It turned out to be sooner.

He screamed.

Jumba was taken aback by the volume. He dropped mirror, shattering it, and fell to the floor covering his ears.

Adrenalin rushed through 625. He pulled at his restraints, tearing them from their molecular welds. He leapt forward and crashed into the door of the OR. Not even waiting for it to slide open, he clung to the door and tore to shreds so he could get through.

With his eyes covered in tears 625 could only see a blur. He raced on all fours through corridors and hallways, not caring where he was going. When he encountered a barrier, he ripped through it and kept going. Charging through hallways he passed by so many other experiments, many of whom he'd never seen before. But all of them were shocked and frightened by the display. None of them tried to stop him.

He hit his head against another wall. He unsheathed his claws and plunged his hands into the metal. Pulling and tearing, the wall finally gave way and he was free to continue. But cold air blew in his face.

625 wiped the tears from his eyes and looked forward. He saw an infinite calm ocean over a cloudless red sunset. He looked down. Great metal pillars dropped many hundreds of feet into the water below.

It was the end of the lab. It must have been built as a rig over an ocean. He'd never actually been outside it before, aside from the shuttle trips to his various missions, but even then he never saw the outside of the lab.

Water was his only weakness. It was the only conventional means to kill him. In an instant 625 made his decision. He let his body lean forward and drop from the end of the lab. The water drew ever closer with the promise of relief. He closed his eyes just before impact.

* * *

It was dark. The dark was comfortable. Consciousness was like a dream, and even that was slipping away. The promise of whatever lay beyond was the greatest comfort of all. Be it existence of a different kind, or nonexistence. Whatever it would be promised to be better than what was. 

But then consciousness came back. At first the dreamlike state returned, but that soon faded into higher consciousness, and finally, waking.

625 had never felt so cold. He felt cold on the inside. He didn't know if it was real or only in his head, but he hated it. He opened his eyes to a blur. Blinking a few times the world cleared up. He was back in the lab, though he didn't recognize the plain square room. Wherever it was, the dull lighting and lac of anything inside seemed to fit the mood. He laid on his back wrapped in a thin blanket. A tube reaching down his throat had sucked the water from his lungs. He breathed through the tube. Jumba had saved him. But why would he do that?

"625?" Came the familiar accented voice.

The opportunity to find out why Jumba had saved him just arose, but 625 didn't want to take it. He reached up and pulled the tube out of his throat, and laid there in silence.

"I was with warnings of you yes?" Jumba continued. "I am so sorry 625."

"You should be." 625 whispered back. "It was your god damn mission that did this to me."

"Uhhh…"

Jumba was about to speak but paused. Jumba had many ways of openly expressing sorrow. Crying was not one of them, but 625 knew he had to be suffering at that moment. He was unmoved, until he heard sniffling. Jumba wouldn't have been doing that. Someone else was there. Through the sniffles came a peep of a voice.

"No…" 625 groaned. "Please don't tell me that's her."

As an answer to that question, the bright pink face of experiment 624 appeared above his eyes. Her face quivered at the sight. She shook her head.

"Naga…" She whispered, as if hoping that through sheer will that reality could be undone. "naga… naga… naga."

"Don't look at me like this."

But she didn't listen. She continued to stare. She saw him like he was now. That was the last thing he ever wanted. Whatever learning of his suicide would do to her would be nothing compared to her seeing him as he was now. And she just saw him as he was now.

He wanted to cheer her up somehow, but at this point only Jumba would be capable of that. He took a risk.

"Are you absolutely sure this is permanent?" 625 asked.

"Yes." Jumba groaned back.

"Can't you… grow me new skin? New ears? I wouldn't mind if I went without my second pair of arms, or my quills or antennae, but you could at least grow me new skin couldn't you?"

"I tried." Jumba answered. "Radiation blast was causing of numerous genetic mutations. Said mutations are impossible for to account for completely. Your body will be rejecting any attempting of graftings of artificial tissue."

"I see."

625 closed his eyes and laid motionless as 624 continued to sob into his chest.

* * *

625 sat in a cushy chair with small electrical nodes attached to his fingers. In front of him was a small field of moving images. A small fishlike creature with a flattened head and clearly predatory markings wearing a police uniform held blasters out in front of him fending off an oncoming horde of fully suited lizard soldiers. They were both commonly seen species. The first resembling four foot, what 625 would later come to know as hammerhead sharks, and the second being of the same race that guarded the abandoned lab he'd attempted to raid a little over a year ago. 

The little shark man responded to 625's every twitch of the fingers to defend himself. What 625 knew for sure was that he was playing a small time cop who was caught in the middle of a massive arms smuggling deal. Any details beyond that he didn't care to pay attention to.

A shadow moved across the floor. 625 noticed it but paid no attention. A similar figure stood next to him and placed a large plate on the arm of the chair. A quick twist of the wrist and everything within the image in front of 625 froze in place and turned to grayscale.

625 looked down to his armchair. The plate had quite a large sandwich on it. It was toasted, and filled with all of his favorite meats, cheeses and vegetables. His mouth watered for the sandwich but his mood gave him no reason to be thankful.

"I could use a sandwich right about now." 625 grumbled.

625 pulled the nodes off of his fingers to better handle the meal. He took no time to savor, but tossed the entire sandwich in his mouth, chewing just long enough to get it to go down.

625 looked down passed the plate to see 624 with clasped hands and an unsure expression. Why she still did these things for him he couldn't understand. It had to be out of pity. After that day she never made love to, or even slept with him. He didn't blame her, after all. She couldn't possibly be attracted to him now. Even more than that she couldn't even still care about him, despite the fact that her eyes always swear that she does.

"_Are you ever going to stop playing your games?_" 624 asked.

"Is there anything else for me to do, I mean besides the stuff I don't want to?" 625 answered.

"_The only things you ever want to do anymore are play games, sleep, and eat sandwiches._"

"I know! It's a great way to live isn't it?"

"_Jumba just completed 626's testing. He says 626 is just like you, but vicious like a bloodthirsty animal._"

"Good for him. At least he can't feel anything."

Angel sighed. Anything she said in response he would just have some witty retort to, and usually an insulting one. She looked a bit more carefully at her former lover. He'd let himself go to the heap over the past year. He wasn't trim or muscular anymore. He was flabby, and he was fat. He never did anything anymore except play his games, make sandwiches, and make insulting comments at anyone who tried to reason with him, even if it was her. She wanted so desperately to comfort him somehow, but words wouldn't be any use here.

624 crawled up onto the chair and curled up against 625. She winced. His fur was like the bristles of an abrasive cleaning instrument, and he knew it.

625 promptly shoved her off of him, and off of the chair. She landed with a thud on the cold metal floor and looked back up at him longingly. The gaze that could once hypnotize him now only angered him.

625 hoped out of the chair and stood over 624 menacingly, snarling and claws extended. 624 scuffled away but continued to stare right into his eyes, only fueling his anger.

"You don't get it do you?" 625 yelled. "There's nothing of the man you once knew left inside me! I'm a husk! I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, some kind of yellow amorphous blob! Those games and those sandwiches? Those are the only things left in my life! Oh sure, there's you, but you know what? But you're nothing more than a pain in my side now. And do you know why?"

625 started crying.

"Because I'm worth your attention. I'm not worth your attention, I'm not worth your feelings, I'm not even worth your pity! And when I see you wasting your time and effort on me, well I know how much of a hassle I must be now, and it makes me feel horrible. You get it? You make me feel horrible!"

625 raised his claw.

"So take this message to heart, and don't ever waste your time on me again."

625 swung his claw down, swiping it across 624's check. She flung herself down against the floor and then looked back up with watery eyes and parted lips. Three red streaks could be seen on her face trickling dark pink blood.

624 began to cry, but just as quickly her face became enraged. She stood up and stood right I the face of 625.

"_If that's what you want. You want me to hate you? Fine! I hate you!_"

624 shoved 625 out of the way and made her way toward the door. 625 smiled and breathed a little easier after what just happened. She was no longer going to torture herself over him. She was going to seek other, more worthy experiments to occupy her time, and maybe even her bed. She would try her damnedest to forget all about him. That was how it should be, and 625 felt a weight of shame lift from his shoulders as she stomped away in her rage.

624 reached the door, it slid open letting a stream of light into the room. At once the light turned from pale white to bright red. Sirens rang out through the hall. 624 jumped back in shock.

Jumba's voice echoed through the hallway over the intercom.

"This is not being drill!" Jumba screamed in the utmost panic. "Repeating, is no drill! Laboratory has been breached by Federation troops! All experiments report for dehydration! Repeating, all experiments report for dehydration!"

624 turned around to look at the only hope she had left to alleviate the crisis.

625 folded his arms and huffed. "Looks like the cavalry finally caught onto ole' President Hammy's fiendish plots. I guess it's off to the ice ovens we go."

624 ran up to 625 and grabbed hold of the fur on his sternum.

"_How could you say that!_" she shrieked. "_You've still got all your old powers! You can stop the assault! All the other experiments are counting on you!"_

"I forgot the part where that was my problem."

Those were the words that finally told 624 the man she once knew was dead, that she was looking at a stranger.

Crying out loud, she turned around and ran out the door. 625 followed far more casually.

* * *

625 huffed and slumped over on his butt. Stress eased away from his body as the last of the memories floated away from his brain. He would be safe in his world of idleness and lethargy until the day they would rear their ugly heads again. 

625 stood back up and looked out the window. The sky was starting to blue, which meant the sunrise wasn't too far away. The rain had died down and the clouds parted. But something was still amiss. Some guilty feeling still bit at the back of his neck. He searched for some time and realized what it was. The memories were incomplete. There was still one thing left for him to do.

625 turned around and dropped from the counter, walking out of the kitchen.

* * *

Someone rang the doorbell. At six thirty in the morning? Who in their right mind would do such a thing? Stitch lifted his head from the couch pilow and stared lazy eyes at the front door. 

"Aga blabla." He grunted to himself, and flopped his head back down onto the couch pillow.

The doorbell rang again. Stitch yanked the pillow out from beneath his head and shoved it ontop of his head to block out the noise. The doorbell rang a third time and Stitch could hear it even through the pillow.

Stitch tossed the pillow to the ground and got up. After rubbing his eyes and yawning he began to make his way to the door.

"Nala queesta." He muttered under his breath, rubbing his eyes again.

Stitch pushed his way through the dog door to be met with the solemn face of 625.

"Gabba?" Stitch asked.

625 handed Stitch a photograph of someone they both knew very well.

"Angel?" Stitch asked again.

"You don't know this, but I knew her long before you did." 625 answered. "I knew her in quite a few senses of the word too. But that was a long time ago, and allot's changed since then. I guess what I'm trying to say is, if we ever get her back, you can keep her.  
Just make sure of one thing. You take good care of her, because she's the best. Believe me, I would know better than anyone else."

625 turned around and walked down the peeling steps of his cousin's house, leaving Stitch to ponder just what it was he was saying.

_fin_


End file.
